
Class '_J&.f\Su£l 
Book._55.9-7- 
CopyrightlS[ _ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



\ 



- ; 



Selections from the 
Editorial Essays 

of 

Lemuel ^toue^ton ^ottofn, ©♦ ?&♦ 

Late Professor of the English 
Language and Literature, 
Western Reserve University ; 
Author of " Here and There 
in the Greek New Testament " 




Cleveland, Ohio 

Privately Printed 

The Burrows Brothers Company 

19 7 






V of 00 NCR ESS 
iwu Coeles Received 

0C1 18 190? 

pngW Entry 

A kxc, no; 

COr , . . 



Copyright, 1907, by Julia H. Potwin 



The reprinting of these editorial essays is 
due to the interest felt in them by my dear 
wife. To her, therefore, the book is dedi- 
cated, as a reminder of our Boston days, 
during which the writing was done, and of 
her loving care and cheering support during 
all our days. 

L. S. P. 

Cleveland, Ohio. . 



Three hundred copies of this book na ^ 
been printed for private distribution only 



It is with much pleasure that I now pre- 
sent this book to those who knew and loved 
my husband. These editorial essays were 
written during the happy years of our life in 
Boston, beginning with May, 1865, for the 
the periodicals of The Boston Tract Society, 
while my husband was editing them. 

They are not specimens of his best writ- 
ings, but are published because many years 
ago he kindly gave me permission to use 
them for a book, if I survived him, and wrote 
at that time the dedication for the book with 
his own dear hand. 

It was found not practicable to put all the 
editorials into one volume, therefore only a 
few of the many are here presented. 

J. H. P. 



Cleveland, Ohio, 8 September, 1907, 



BMtortal JEssavs 



"IF THE LORD WILL, WE SHALL 
LIVE, AND DO THIS OR THAT" 

A new year has come; and now let us 
stop and think and plan. Yet in one sense 
we can not stop; we must plan as we go on; 
for life and character and time will not stop. 

What plans shall we lay? Of course, it 
is not forgotten that you and we that plan 
may not live to execute our plans; indeed, 
it is quite certain that all of us who read 
these lines will not. But this is no reason 
why we should not form plans. As a man, 
when he walks, sees further than he steps, 
so, in life, we look forward in our thoughts 
beyond where w r e have gone, and where, 
perhaps, we never shall go. Earthly plans 
are frustrated by our death; yet we can not 
live well without them: so that, after all, 
what we have to do is to plan well, and then 
go straight forward in carrying out our 
schemes till God says, "Hold! it is enough: 
thou didst well that it was in thy heart." 

God means to have us plan for life as 
well as for death; and he gives us a sort of 
limited and hazy view of the future, that we 



may have spirit and purpose to go on till he 
bids us stop. 

Reader, do you know how to plan with 
an "if?" Do you say, "I will do this or that if 
I can," and stop there? Or, recognizing the 
uncertainty of life, do you say simply, "I will 
if I live?" There is a better "if" than either 
of these; and it is worth your while to begin 
the year with it, and say "If the Lord will, I 
shall live, and do this or that." There's 
strength in such an "if." You grasp an al- 
mighty arm, and say, "I shall be as strong 
this year as Omnipotence shall see fit to 
make me." 

Perhaps some think that it makes one 
weak to be very submissive to the will of 
God. Oh, no! By this submission the weak 
are made strong, and the strong are made 
mighty. The reason is this : God's will car- 
ries all his power with it. It is not mere 
restraint. When you say, "If the Lord will," 
you should mean, not simply, "If the Lord 
lets me;" but, "If the Lord enables me, if he 
inspires me with wisdom, if he clothes me 
with power; which wisdom and power I will 
seek with all my might." If a man is at 
peace with God, he does not breathe less 
freely, because he knows that he draws his 
next breath "if the Lord will." Come, friend, 
lay your plans for this year with this blessed 
"if" in your heart. 

[12] 



Let us ask you also to lay your plans so 
that they will not be entirely frustrated by 
your death. Perhaps you are saying, "To- 
day or to-morrow I will go into such a city, 
and continue there a year, and buy and sell 
and get gain." Is there any way in which 
this gain can be transmuted into treasure in 
heaven? Yes. Consecrate to God this day 
every dollar that you own, or shall own for 
this year. Call yourself a steward only, not 
a proprietor; and then, if death snatches you 
from your earnings, you will find them in 
God's treasury on high. 

But, if you would make sure of unbroken 
plans, plan for labor for Christ and souls. 
Sow seed that will spring up and bear a 
glorious harvest after you are gone. Such 
plans can not be lost. They are a part of 
your soul. You will take them with you, 
and will find them to be the germs of a heav- 
enly progress in holiness. 

Lay your plans for this year so that they 
can be finished, if need be, in heaven. Every 
ship is launched before it is quite completed. 
We shall pass into eternity before our earth- 
ly plans are all executed. May they be such 
as God will complete, either on earth or in 
the world of glory ! 



[13] 



THE OLD AND THE NEW 

Why do we call the year old as soon as 
it is gone? Is there a magic clasp binding 
the years together, which snaps at midnight, 
December 31, and lets the train of months fall 
back, — back into the chaos of ancient things? 
What is it that justifies us in drawing the 
sharp contrast between new and old? The 
year 1865 is not old, except in the view of 
that bright fancy which pictures the coming 
year as fresh, happy, and new, and takes its 
dark background from the one just gone. 

The last ring that encircles the oak is not 
old; it is but just completed; it measures the 
last year's growth; it is the latest and newest 
acquisition. The ring of next year's growth 
is not. 

This last year of our lives has gone into 
our being. In this view, it is our new year. 
We have only now come into possession of 
it. And what has the past year brought us? 

We have all taken something from the 
great public events which have surrounded 
us. Public events are made of private ac- 
tions, and are a part of the moral atmosphere 
which all breathe. 

The year opened upon a country in the 
full tide of war; that tide indeed bearing us 
rapidly toward peace, but war, bloody and 
terrible, nevertheless. With the spring came 

[14] 



victory, and after victory tears, — tears such 
as flow only once in a nation's lifetime. Then 
came the welcome footsteps of returning 
soldiers, the struggles of the emancipated 
after the higher life of freedom, the return 
of prodigal States, though without the prod- 
igal's repentance, and public thanksgiving 
to God that war is over and the nation pre- 
served. All through the year also justice 
has been tardily adding one bolt after an- 
other to the barrier that for ever debars slav- 
ery from constitutional government. All 
these are called public events; but private 
homes and hearts have hung their happiness 
on them, and have learned lessons from 
them. 

It is the old year, is it? But do its more 
strictly personal and family events seem old 
and distant? You have been on a journey. 
However still you may have kept yourself 
as to locality, you have journeyed in time, in 
life. Through a perpetually varying succes- 
sion of opportunities, successes, reverses, 
hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, well-doing, ill- 
doing, you have traveled on. 

Some of you have changed companions 
on your journey. In some family circles 
little ones have come to gladden the hearts 
of parents, and to claim spiritual life from 
those who have given them natural life. 
Some of you have found a heart to beat 

[15] 



closely to yours in the love of husband and 
wife. Some have changed home and friends 
to go among strangers and begin life anew; 
many others, leaving their tent-homes or 
prison-dens, have learned, as a new lesson, 
what home is. Some of you have stepped 
from childhood into the first stages of inde- 
pendent life; and others have been laying 
off life's burden, saying, "Let me rest, for 
the evening has come." 

Some of you have seen your companions 
pass "into the silent land." Oh! if it be an 
old year that saw them die, how fresh and 
new are its memories and tears ! Some per- 
haps died in darkness, and drove into your 
heart the question, "Did I do what I could 
to save them?" but others died triumphantly, 
and gave you a new impression of the near- 
ness of heaven and the truth of Christ's reli- 
gion. We recall the dying words of one 
whom we knew as a faithful follower of 
Jesus: "Now my work is done, and I am 
ready to go." In early childhood he found 
the Saviour, and at the age of ten sat at the 
Lord's table. He had served his Master in 
the family, the church, the Sabbath school, 
and the army; and last year, in early man- 
hood, his work was done. 

But we can not go over all that has given 
the last year a permanent place in our char- 
acters and history. Though gone from ex- 

[16] 



perience, it is not gone from our being, nor 
from the book of God's remembrance. No 
year is old to him. 

And now what of the new? — that which 
we fondly call a new year, when but an hour 
of it is in our grasp. Reader, it may be new 
in a higher sense than as an additional year. 
Are you dissatisfied with the attainments 
and the life of past years? Seize the promise 
which hope, which God, holds out to you in 
bringing you to another of life's beginnings. 
"This month shall be unto you the beginning 
of months," said the Lord to the Israelites, 
when he signalized their deliverance from 
bondage by giving them a new sacred year. 

You that have sought your highest pleas- 
ure in worldliness; you that have gone even 
far down the steps of vice, — tempted, fallen, 
heart-sick one, — think of a new year, a year 
of higher life, a year of the new heart, a year 
with Christ, a year of hope, of faith, of peace. 
Reach after it. You are not too low to reach 
it. Take the happy omen found in the greet- 
ings of the opening day. Find your happi- 
ness in a new year of the new life. - 



[17] 



LESSONS FROM THE HILLS 

It could not have been an accident, nor 
was it entirely from our own choice, that 
on the morning of our starting for a vaca- 
tion among the White Mountains, a few 
weeks ago, we turned, at family worship, to 
the hundred and twenty-first Psalm, and 
read, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, 
from whence cometh my help. My help 
cometh from the Lord, which made heaven 
and earth." We never noticed before how 
much of a traveler's psalm this was. He 
who leaves home feels the need of a guide 
and keeper. "He will not suffer thy foot to 
be moved: He that keepeth thee will not 
slumber." Protection is needed by day and by 
night. "The sun shall not smite thee by day, 
nor the moon by night." Especially is there 
need of guardian care amid the dangers of 
travel. "The Lord shall preserve thy going- 
out and thy coming-in." 

Kept by the preserving goodness of the 
Lord, we have gone out and come in, and 
have literally lifted up our eyes to the hills 
and received help from them, and have 

[18] 



thanked the great Creator for the hills and 
mountains. 

We congratulate those of our readers 
who live in the midst of mountain-scenery. 
For ourselves, we have been taking a short 
course of lessons from the hills. Among 
other lessons, they have taught us one of 
natural beauty and sublimity. The earth, 
be it as flat as the sea, is beautiful from the 
delightful colors that greet the eye from 
grass and flower and grain and tree ; but you 
can not see the picture well till it is lifted up 
and hung against the sky, curtained by the 
clouds, brightened by silvery brooks, and 
retouched every day by the shadows. There 
is no sublimity in a dead level. The land- 
scape is all under your feet, and your eye 
is but the length of your body above it. But 
let it rise around you, and tower till the 
awful cliffs threaten you from among the 
clouds, and you will say with Jacob, "How 
dreadful is this place!" Whether you will 
add, as he did, "This is none other but the 
house of God, and this is the gate of heaven/' 
will depend upon whether you are accus- 
tomed to see and feel God in his works, or, 
like too many who are mere pleasure-seekers 
— not God-seekers — in their summer recrea- 
tion, are willing to forget God in his su- 
blimest temple. Let us say too, here, that 
a sense of beauty and sublimity is not re- 

[19] 



ligion, whether it is felt in God's out-door 
cathedrals, or in the vastly inferior ones 
which man toils to build. We must love, 
adore, and serve: that is religion. A re- 
deemed soul is more sublime and beautiful 
than "the whole world" of matter, if it could 
be brought, in all its grandest forms, within 
a single view. Yet we would not scorn nat- 
ural beauty. God loves it, or he would not 
have made it. We may, by enjoying it, love 
God more. 

The hills and mountains have taught us 
a lesson respecting the work of creation. 
Have we a new geological theory to pro- 
pose? Oh, no! We can not improve upon 
Professors Dana and Guyot in that line. Yet 
we have, for the first time, learned, so as to 
feel it, the meaning of Gen. i. 9., "Let the dry 
land appear." Let one who is privileged to 
stand upon the summit of Mount Washing- 
ton read that verse, or, better, repeat it from 
memory, "And God said, Let the waters 
under the heaven be gathered together unto 
one place, and let the dry land appear," and 
dwell upon it in his imagination till he can 
almost feel beneath him the mighty throb 
that on that third "day" disturbed the hith- 
erto unbroken surface of the deep, and raised 
the drowned land higher, higher, until the 
waters had all hurried to their "one place," 
and the mountains stood firm, as high as the 

[20] 



ocean is deep, and he will gain some con- 
ception of one stage of the Creator's work 
in preparing this globe for the abode of man. 
We see no reason to doubt that this sublime 
work is referred to in the hundred and fourth 
Psalm. "Who laid the foundations of the 
earth, that it should not be removed for ever. 
Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a 
garment : the waters stood above the moun- 
tains (i. e., 'before the mountains were 
brought forth' Ps. xc. 2). At Thy rebuke 
they fled; at the voice of Thy thunder (for 
God said, 'Let the dry land appear') they 
hasted away. They go up by the mountains 
(dashed against them in their tumultuous 
course toward the forming seas); they go 
down by the valleys unto the place which 
Thou hast founded for them. Thou hast set 
a bound that they may not pass over; that 
they turn not again to cover the earth" (5-9). 
This suggests the only other lesson from 
the hills that we will mention. They give 
vividness to many passages of Scripture. 
Palestine was, as Moses describes it in Deu- 
teronomy, "a land of hills and valleys." From 
the "hill country" on the south to the lofty 
White Mountains (as Lebanon means) on 
the north, where Mount Hermon towered a 
full half-mile higher than our own Mount 
Washington, the whole country was more 
than hilly: it was mountainous. The cov- 

[21] 



enant law, too, was given on Mount Sinai; 
so that the nation of Israel might be said to 
be mountain-born. No wonder, then, that 
Bible thoughts are, many of them, cast in 
the mountain-mold. Much of their sublime 
imagery can not be appreciated by dwellers 
on the prairie. You must climb a mountain- 
side, measure its mighty bulwarks, and teach 
your eye to take in from a distance its won- 
derful mass and weight, before you can un- 
derstand Habakkuk's picture of God's power 
and majesty: "The mountains saw Thee, and 
they trembled;. . .the everlasting mountains 
were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow." 
Or Nahum: "The mountains quake at Him, 
and the hills melt." Or Micah : "Behold, the 
Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will 
come down and tread upon the high places 
of the earth; and the mountains shall be 
molten under him, and the valleys shall be 
cleft as wax before the fire." Or the Psalm- 
ist: "What ailed thee, O thou sea! that thou 
fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven 
back? ye mountains, that ye skipped like 
rams? and ye little hills like lambs? Tremble, 
thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at 
the presence of the God of Jacob." Or Isaiah: 
"Oh that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, 
that Thou wouldst come down, that the 
mountains might flow down at Thy pres- 



ence." 



[22] 



The Bible is a beautiful book for the 
traveler; for it is not only his moral and 
spiritual guide-book, but gains itself new- 
luster from every region that he visits. Just 
so does it grow in preciousness with every 
advance of its reader in the narrow way of 
Christian life. A life of piety is the key to 
the Bible. 

Thus, while we rested, we learned lessons 
from the hills and mountains. 



123] 



BY THE SEA 

It is, perhaps, of small interest to our 
readers where we are when we write; but it 
often makes a great difference with our 
thoughts. It is well, sometimes, to let one's 
thinking run quietly into the mold of the 
place where he is. 

We have been staying a while on the 
shore of "the great and wide sea." From 
the window where we now sit, we see the 
ocean, and can see little else, — before, at the 
right, and at the left, as far as the eye can 
reach. The water noisily strikes the near 
beach, and almost the very rock on which 
the house, our temporary home, is founded. 

The view impresses us with the fact that 
the sea is no interloper in creation, merely 
incidental to the solid earth, but a very con- 
siderable part of the world as God made it. 
We confess that that prophecy in Revelation 
puzzles us : "And there shall be no more sea." 
Will the new earth be oceanless, retaining 
"the strength of the hills," but emptied for 
ever of the deep, subtile, illimitable strength 
of the sea? Let us hope, that, if no tides 
wash those blessed shores, the lack will be 

[24] 






filled by a boundless variety of rivers and 
lakes that shall be more beautiful, more 
healthful, and less cruel and treacherous. 
After all, let this teach us to trust very little 
in our speculations about the future state; 
mourn still less about imagined wants there. 
What God has said, let us hold by. If we 
build on it something of our own, let us 
never confound our "wood, hay, and stubble'' 
with the rock on which we build. If "there 
shall be no more sea," then there will be no 
need of it. And yet we like to fall back on 
that other saying, which seems to put equal 
honor upon sea and land: "The sea is His, 
and he made it; and his hands formed the 
dry land." 

Yes, he made it; and it bears the same 
marks of his handiwork which the land does. 
Is the land vast, high, deep, rough, and yet 
smooth and soft and beautiful? So is the 
sea. Does the land teem with animals in- 
numerable of exquisite structure and perfect 
adaptations? So does the sea. There lies 
on our table a sea-urchin which we captured 
the other day. It looks, at first glance, like 
a chestnut-burr. It is really an animal, whose 
shell is composed of six hundred different 
pieces, put together with consummate skill, 
and all covered with hundreds of green 
spines, each one of which, under the micro- 
scope, exhibits the most beautiful regularity 

[25] 



and perfection. It looks, indeed, like the 
work of Him who formed the inhabitants 
of the dry land, and gave to man his won- 
derful complicated body. And then we must 
remember that some of the types of the ani- 
mal kingdom have their representatives both 
on land and in the ocean. Men and fishes 
are vertebrates: spiders and crabs are crusta- 
ceans. Does the land blossom with flowers? 
So does the sea. Go with us to-day to a spot 
only a stone's-throw from where we are 
writing, and we will show you such a bed of 
flowers as perhaps you never saw equaled on 
land. It is not high, but deep. The tide has 
gone out, and left a rocky pool that you can 
step across either way. Its sides are lined 
through its whole depth with a dozen differ- 
ent kinds of sea-moss growing fast to the 
rocks. The colors, forms, and structure are 
exquisite. Shells cling to the walls, to the 
moss, to the clean party-colored granite bot- 
tom. With your cane you can just touch 
the bottom. You need not be afraid of roil- 
ing the limpid water: you can not disturb its 
clearness. More, you can not carry away the 
treasures of that grotto. Some of the mosses 
you can gather by hard pulling and cutting; 
but the one gem of the pool, whose rich 
brown leaves are tipped with a truly royal 
purple, loses its glory when it leaves the 
water. "He made it" for the sea; and there 

[26] 



only will it bloom. Sea and land unite in 
declaring the glory of their common Creator. 

There are many other suggestions re- 
specting moral and spiritual things which 
float into the mind of a dweller by the sea. 
The tide is most suggestive. Have you ever 
watched its coming in, and seen how the 
great movement that throbs half round the 
globe seems to terminate in a slow creeping- 
up among the pebbles of the beach, and pen- 
etrating into the crevices of the sinking 
rocks? Like this are the movements of Prov- 
idence in the affairs of men. Men look upon 
the littleness of a majority of human actions 
and earthly events, and say that it can not be 
that the great God stoops to fulfill his pur- 
poses by such little things. Let them go to 
the seashore, and dispute with the rising tide, 
and chide it for playing gently with sand 
and sea-weed, instead of moving with the 
majesty of a tempest. He is blind to true 
greatness who can not see that it compre- 
hends innumerable little things. One tidal 
impulse of the ocean strikes a million points 
on the land. 

The tide is suggestive of some things in 
human character. The ebbing tide makes 
one think of a backslider. We have watched 
it when it was almost impossible to tell 
whether it was coming in or going out. We 
could tell only by some little thing on the 

[271 



beach, not by looking at the whole mass. 
Then the surf would deceive us. The water 
might be going out; but the waves were all 
the while coming in. So it is with an ebbing 
Christian. Imperceptibly, at first, he begins 
to decline. His general demeanor is fair; 
but those who see him in the unguarded 
moments of daily life discover that he is 
going by inches. Past Christian habits keep 
up in the closet and prayer-meeting a sort 
of religious surf that sounds like activity and 
progress; but, all the while, the heart is 
going back, back, from God and duty. 

We do not wish to be fanciful in inter- 
preting Nature: but these are some of the 
thoughts that have come to us, unbidden, in 
hours of relaxation; and we give them to 
you, reader, as our parable of the seaside. 



[28] 



BOONTON AT SUNRISE 

We were spending a few days in a quiet 
country town of New Jersey, where, from 
a distance of twelve miles, we could see the 
village of Boonton in its high mountain-nest. 
It lay west of us ; and at every clear sunrise — 
indeed, before it was sunrise with us, — it 
glittered like a thousand stars with the re- 
flected light. The beautiful sight set us 
thinking; and now it has set us to writing. 

The splendid effect was entirely without 
design, so far as man was concerned. No 
one intended to put up a thousand polished 
mirrors there for the benefit of people a score 
of miles away. The glaziers simply set 
panes of glass for light to the houses; and 
not one more did they set than seemed neces- 
sary for the comfort or taste of the occu- 
pants. All this sparkling glory was not only 
incidental, but absolutely unprovided for; 
yet it had become the gem of that region's 
morning landscape. 

We thought at once of the shining plan- 
ets, and wondered if their radiance was as 
incidental to the main end of their creation 
as was that of the glittering village before 

[29] 



us. It was a very small matter that this 
collection of houses shone at a distance; the 
great thing was the human life that had its 
home there. So it may be that the light, not 
only of the planets, but of every star, is the 
very least thing that they were made for. 
Then we thought how different God is from 
man in this; that nothing is purely incidental 
with him. What seems to us a single act of 
his may have a thousand purposes to sub- 
serve. He may reveal to us but one of these 
purposes, and we may say that that one is 
all; and yet it may be the least of all. He 
has told us that he made the heavenly bodies 
"to give light upon the earth." What if, 
hereafter, we should learn that this is com- 
paratively as small a matter as the reflection 
from these panes of glass? Nevertheless, it 
is God's provision — and one of vital moment 
— for our world. 

If we wished to prolong this, we might 
ask whether there are not doctrines of rev- 
elation that we judge as poorly of, as if we 
should say that that village was built merely 
to give a charming view for five minutes to 
the few who might happen to be up early 
enough to see it. When we reach heaven, 
we shall know more than we do now of that 
glory that we have seen shine down from it 
upon earth. 



[30] 



AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 

We are writing among the hills and 
mountains of Northern New Hampshire, 
whither we came to escape from work. Un- 
less the writing of this may be called work, 
we have succeeded admirably in our purpose. 
We have spent a month in reading one of 
Nature's volumes, — not studying; the geol- 
ogist studies the volume, so the botanist. For 
ourselves we have only undertaken light 
reading, — skipping the hard words at that; 
for we felt it to be a religious duty to read 
and rest at once. 

It has been our business, our work, and 
our play, to look. Could we have gone any- 
where else with the same design, without 
doubt we could have seen enough to charm 
and satisfy us; but here we are in a region 
that seems specially made by the good Crea- 
tor to feast the eyes, or that part of the soul 
which receives impressions of beauty from 
the eye so immediately and strongly that it 
seems to taste them, and so is called the 
Taste. 

We have been looking, not laboriously, 
not idly, not very actively, not quite pass- 

[31] 



ively, but receptively, easily. We have simply 
lived out of doors with open eyes, and prais- 
ing God every day (how could we help it?) 
for the unsullied, unfallen world of Nature. 

We have looked at the hills as if we had 
never seen a hill before, — hills near and dis- 
tant; hills cultivated, and hills forest-cov- 
ered. We have watched them in the clear, 
still light of noonday, in their proper dress 
of green, and brown, and yellow, and blue, 
and have seen them in their hues borrowed 
of the clouds, from the frowning black to the 
smiling rose-color, and decorated with inde- 
scribable beauty in the airy drapery which 
men call fog. 

We have looked at the mountains, hour 
by hour, not just as we have looked at the 
hills, but more seriously. It is really a grave 
matter to come into the shadow of a great 
mountain and look up. We have not asked 
the reason why. We have simply looked 
until the impression of grandeur and 
strength fairly struck in. Now we approach 
up the valley and the mountains rise before 
us as we enter in; now we ascend an opposite 
height and they seem to rise up with us; and 
now again we see only their summits stand- 
ing beyond the fresh green hill-tops, gloomy, 
rough, dark, awful, like eternal Justice tow- 
ering behind human sympathies. We have 
heard of clouds playing around the tops of 

[221 



mountains, but we have seen on such thing. 
They would hardly dare to play there. They 
move softly, reverently. And where have 
we ever seen greatness clothed in beauty 
more fully than when the mountains (not 
hills) are draped with huge cloud-vines 
climbing over their blue and purple heights? 
Then again we have put the mountains 
under our feet, and looked from them; for 
mountain greatness is passive, after all. It 
moves not till it is made to move. The 
mountains were made to stand. They are 
built for the human eye; and we never knew 
what the eye was till we measured its range 
from the top of Mt. Washington. To know 
mountains you must climb them, — fairly 
wrestle with them, — and, when you have 
climbed the highest, look down, to learn its 
height by its depth, and by the barren peaks 
that tower around and beneath you. 

We have looked at the clouds, — no new 
thing, to be sure, but in a hilly region the 
clouds seem to bend lower than elsewhere, — 
we have seen them grow from shadowy 
vapor, rising from the rivers, till they looked 
dense and threatening. We have watched 
them in the coming storm when they were 
like the mountains uprooted and careering 
along the sky; for clouds are grander to the 
eye than mountains when we forget that 
they are but vapor. 

[33] 



We have looked (we must not omit this) 
upon brooks. Did we ever see one before? 
It seemed not; for a mountain brook is the 
only real brook. We have seen it darting, 
leaping, almost flying, among the rocks, 
flashing in the light and hiding itself in dark, 
deep pools; dashing itself all into foam and 
spray, spreading into silvery veils, and slip- 
ping noiselessly over its smooth, steep, gran- 
ite pavement. A brook is the life of a moun- 
tain side. A mountain cascade is the peer 
of Niagara. 

So we have looked till the eye was satis- 
fied with seeing, and the imagination 
stamped and restamped with forms of gran- 
deur and beauty; and, as we turn our backs 
upon the country and rest, and look towards 
the city and work, we say, Blessed be God 
for hills and mountains, trees and forests, 
fogs and clouds, brooks and rivers, and the 
sunlight and the eye. "Praise ye the Lord 
from the heavens; praise him in the heights 
.... Mountains and all hills : fruitful trees 
and all cedars." 



[34] 



DOCTRINES 

We lately attended a Union prayer-meet- 
ing where the following notice was promi- 
nently posted: "Nothing of a doctrinal or 
sectarian character to be introduced. " We 
sat and pondered as to how we should com- 
port ourselves, if called upon to speak, with- 
in such narrow limits. The atonement of 
Christ would be a noble theme, worthy of an 
angel's tongue; but that is a doctrine. The 
need of regeneration by the Holy Ghost 
would be, perhaps, better for a meeting 
where sinners are especially prayed for; but 
that is a doctrine. Then we will warn sin- 
ners, if any are present, of a coming judg- 
ment: but stop; that, too, is a doctrine. It 
could not be, then, that the notice meant 
what it seemed to; but why was it so 
worded? Because the word "doctrinal" has 
become degraded, in the popular estimation, 
to a level with "controversial." Yet we 
were pained at such an indorsement of a 
popular error. Our English Bible, which 
contains the word "doctrine" in honorable 
connections about forty times, ought to save 
it from such degradation. 

[35] 



It will be said that "doctrine" in the Bible 
means teaching. Very true; the "doctrine 
of God our Saviour" is his teaching, or in- 
struction. The "apostles' doctrine" was 
what they taught. "Sound doctrine" was 
correct teaching. But that is what "doc- 
trine" now means, when properly used, — 
the instruction of God's word on the great 
themes of religion. We protest against its 
being made to mean any thing else. 

It can not be said that the common people 
are altogether responsible for what is here 
objected to. The doctrines of the Bible, 
when theologically reduced to system, do 
many times have a large mixture of the hu- 
man with the divine. Men are tempted to 
feel that the pure loaf is not dealt out to 
them, but only a scant measure of scriptural, 
meal, raised with intellectual and contro- 
versial leaven. There is room for improve- 
ment here, no doubt; and let us seek it, but 
not by deriding or stigmatizing doctrines or 
doctrinal preaching. 



[36] 



LOVE FOR LOVE 

True religion is a response to God. Just 
as the earth involuntarily responds in its 
fruitfulness and beauty to the warmth and 
light of the sun, so man responds voluntarily 
to the revelation and love of God. He does 
so in worship and in active usefulness. Man 
is properly called a religious being, not be- 
cause he can originate the true religion, but 
because he is able to receive and reciprocate 
a divine religion. The fire that kindles the 
acceptable sacrifice comes from heaven. 

And what is that kindling power from 
above, that warms the human soul, and 
draws it upward? It is love. God is called 
both Light and Love. As Light, he reveals 
to us the truth; and our response to that is 
faith. As Love, he reveals to us his own 
infinitely loving heart; and, in return, we 
give our hearts, our love. 

Reader, what think you of the love of 
God? What evidence have you of it? You 
at once turn to the cross of Christ; and what 
think you of that? Do you regard it as 
something belonging altogether to the past? 
True, the wood of the cross has perished, 
and the sufferings of Jesus were ended (who 

[37] 



would have it otherwise?) long ago; but 
Jesus Christ is " the same, yesterday and 
today and for ever," and his love is today 
measured by the cross. The crucifixion is 
past; but the love that submitted to it for 
our sakes is everlasting. Read the story of 
the cross, then, to find what it means today. 
After you have gathered up every feature of 
that awful scene, and surrounded it by the 
dark shadows of the brief earthly life that 
preceded it, then compare it with the glories 
of heaven, and estimate, if you can, the self- 
sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That is the picture 
of something past; that is in the imagina- 
tion: but here is something in the present, 
and a constant reality. Jesus stands by you 
today, willing to undergo all this again, if it 
were necessary, to save your soul. That is 
the present cross, the present love of God. 

It is this crucifixion-love that surrounds 
us daily. It presses upon us from every side. 
Every blessing that distinguishes us from 
the lost comes from it. Every form of Chris- 
tian influence is a reflection from that love. 
We can not escape from it; but we can fail 
to respond to it. It is easy to imagine that 
if we had seen Jesus on Calvary we should 
have been moved to love him; but we now 
stand before a more impressive cross than 
the literal one, for we understand better the 
meaning of Christ's death. 

[38] 



COMING TO THE FATHER BY THE 
SON 

The doctrines of the Trinity and the 
Incarnation may at times confound the intel- 
lect: but they satisfy the heart; for they 
show the way to communion with God. 

There was a way of coming to God pre- 
scribed in the old dispensation. It was not 
only symbolical of the future, but, in itself, 
was highly expressive. The sacrifices sig- 
nified the giving-up of life forfeited by sin: 
this was justice. But they also were based 
on a substituted life : this was mercy. Under 
the old covenant, men came to the Father 
through a Saviour whose atoning work was 
only hinted at. The foundation was there. 
The grand ideas of atonement were sketched 
in outline, and were presented to the senses 
by altars, victims, blood, and incense. 

What was wanting in all this? It was 
that which is described in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews as "a new and living way" (x. 20). 
It is not by mere teaching, whether symbol- 
ical or plain, that Jesus becomes our Saviour. 
He is, in his very nature, a Mediator, — God- 
Man. He is the ''living Way." When we 

[39] 



come to him, and are his friends, we have 
found the Father; for he says, "He that hath 
seen me hath seen the Father." 

The Incarnation brings God so near to 
our thoughts and sympathies, that we are 
without excuse if we do not find him. The 
Atonement so completely washes away our 
guilt, that we are without excuse if we do not 
trust in it. The exaltation of Jesus presents 
him to us as ever living to make intercession 
for us. This is not a lifeless way, — a way of 
reaching the Father by our own thoughts 
and inferences. A sympathizing, atoning, 
and divine Life draws us onward to heaven. 

If Jesus were a mere creature, then com- 
ing to him would leave still a wide distance 
between us and God. But he is not a way 
that stops short at the beginning of the jour- 
ney. He takes us quite to God our Father. 
In him is the love of God. His justice is the 
justice of God. His words are God's words. 
His promise of salvation is as sure as the 
throne of God. His blood is the seal of God's 
own covenant. 

The Incarnation is a great mystery; but 
the design of it can hardly be called a mys- 
tery. Its design was, and is, to bring God 
near to us, and to bring us near to God. God 
the Father, as pure Spirit, could not so ap- 
peal to our senses and sympathies, and could 
not atone for sin upon the cross. As crea- 

[40] 



tures of earth, but more especially as sin- 
ners, we need to come to the Father by the 
Son, the "new and living Way." Dear 
reader, you can find God if you desire to. 
He is near you. Do you not see "the Way?" 



[41] 



THE INNOCENT FOR THE GUILTY 

It has been claimed, as against the atone- 
ment, that it would be unjust in a human 
government for an innocent man, however 
willing he might be, to receive punishment 
in place of the guilty. It is also urged, that 
on account of this injustice, if for no other 
reason, such a substitution could not possi- 
bly honor the law, but would tend to subvert 
all law. 

Christians have not always given this 
objection the consideration which it de- 
serves. When fully considered, it will be 
found to shed additional honor upon the 
atonement. 

It is true, that, in the best human govern- 
ments, the substitution of the innocent for 
the guilty in the matter of punishment is 
utterly inadmissible. All progress in crim- 
inal jurisprudence is toward the goal of pun- 
ishing the guilty only, and the guilty always. 
While it is not expected that this last will 
ever be attained, — that no guilty one will 
escape justice, — it is expected (and the end 
is pursued with a zeal corresponding to the 
expectation) that no innocent person shall 

[42] 



be condemned. Hence the maxims, that 
"Every one is presumed to be innocent till 
proved guilty," and that "It is better for ten 
guilty to escape than for one innocent to be 
condemned." 

We go further. It would be positively 
and outrageously wrong for a magistrate to 
allow an innocent person to suffer punish- 
ment in place of a condemned criminal. 

But why is all this true? We answer, It 
is because such a substitution is entirely be- 
yond the power of human law to regulate or 
make useful. It is above and beyond law. 
The innocent do suffer instead of the guilty 
in many ways, and in a multitude of in- 
stances, — parents instead of children, and 
children instead of parents, friend for friend, 
and neighbor for neighbor, — all these provi- 
dentially, in ways that statute law can not 
produce or prevent. The highest instances 
of self-sacrifice are those of the innocent in- 
curring some of the woes of the guilty to 
save them. Criminal law can not turn aside 
from its straight course to look after such 
things. It can not incorporate into its sys- 
tem these providential substitutions, so as 
to make them a part of the law itself. That 
is its incurable weakness. It seeks impartial 
justice. The progress of law, while it se- 
cures the innocent from arbitrary inflictions, 
also debars, to the same degree, the guilty 

[43] 



from the friendly interference of self-sac- 
rificing innocence. The progress of law- 
leaves it more than ever law, not grace. 
Even after the condemnation of the crim- 
inal, it hedges about the pardoning power, 
confines it within general rules of policy, and 
warns off the tender hearts of loving friends. 
What means all this as applied to the 
atonement? It means, that, what human 
law can not do, God can do. What human 
law becomes more and more unable to do as 
it advances toward perfection, God does 
more and more gloriously to the end. This 
is because his government is administered, 
not merely by statute laws, but by far deeper 
moral and spiritual laws and providential 
overrulings. Such a system can provide, not 
only for the straight course of justice toward 
the guilty individual, but for the general in- 
terests of justice as embodied in the law of 
righteousness. It can admit the intercession 
of self-sacrifice in behalf of the guilty, which 
human law can not do. It can weigh the 
moral value of that self-sacrifice as against 
the value of strict punishment, which human 
law can not do. It can estimate the power 
of that self-sacrifice and substitution to re- 
form the guilty, which human law can not 
do. It can arrange how that substitution 
can be brought about providentially, so as to 
have its full effect, which human law can 

[44] 



not do. It can bring into the world one per- 
son, the infinite Son of God, who alone can 
be the substitute for a whole race of sinners, 
and whose suffering, self-sacrifice, and per- 
fect righteousness, shall bring sin into con- 
demnation, and righteousness into its re- 
ward, more fully than would the punishment 
of all men, or the unimpeached righteousness 
of all men. 

Now, we do not suppose that these con- 
siderations can be appreciated without some 
reflection; but we ask the reader to give 
them that reflection, or else cease from mak- 
ing objection to the fact that "Christ hath 
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
made a curse for us," on the ground that 
human law admits no such thing. It is too 
much for human law to do. It would be a 
glorious thing; but no human contrivance 
can compass it. 

We have said that human law goes 
farther and farther from this as it advances. 
A constitutional government is less in the 
power of a single mind, and can not be 
shaped according to the moral exigencies, 
as they appear to the conscience of one man. 
Hence the best illustrations of the great 
atonement are found in absolute monarchies. 
Many are familiar with the story of Zaleu- 
cus, the ancient lawgiver of the Locrians, in 
Southern Italy. The penalty for adultery, 

[45] 



according to his law, was to have the two 
eyes put out. The son of Zaleucus was 
proved guilty of the crime. Brought before 
his father, he received his sentence. The 
people begged that the penalty might be re- 
mitted. Doubtless a father's heart begged 
with them. The father yielded so far as to 
put out one of his son's eyes and one of his 
own. Some have ridiculed this, as if the law- 
giver had merely perpetrated a grim prac- 
tical pun on his own statute. Can they not 
see that what he did, and meant to do, was, 
not to literally inflict the penalty of the law, 
but to show his willingness to share, so far 
as possible, the punishment of his guilty 
son? The value of the transaction was not 
in showing that one and one are two, nor 
that it makes no difference whether the in- 
nocent or the guilty suffer. Zaleucus 
showed at once his love for his son and 
his estimate of what his son's crime de- 
served. He could not justify his course be- 
fore finical legal critics; but he took a prac- 
tical, and, as the story goes, an effectual 
mode of expressing his regard for his law. 

Now, what Zaleucus could do only in a 
ghastly way for a handful of men, and by a 
sort of violence to his own legislation, God 
does in a glorious and perfect way for the 
whole race by a self-sacrifice that reveals his 
infinite love for man, and his eternal repro- 

[46] 



bation of sin. The earthly lawgiver gave 
his eye: the heavenly Father gives his only- 
begotten Son to suffering and death. Legal 
science takes no account of such things; but 
the human soul does, and God does: and 
legal science, if it approaches to gaze, must 
take its shoes from off its feet; for it is holy 
ground. 

Reader, you will hear much said against 
the atonement in these days. Do not be de- 
ceived by superficial objections. The atone- 
ment is the profoundest fact of history. 
Never be ashamed of it. Never fear to honor 
the blood of Jesus. 



[47] 



YOUR SINS ARE ATONED FOR 

Just imagine, reader, that you have never 
sinned. It may be hard; but try. Look at 
yourself, as perfectly pure and holy; your 
heart so clean, that the Searcher of hearts 
can discover no stain of sin, and your out- 
ward life as blameless as that of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Think of every wish and 
motive and impulse as always and fully con- 
formed to the will of God. The deep and 
settled inclination of your soul is immovably 
right. Your character is not only passively 
pure, but actively benevolent. You have 
spent your days in doing good. You have 
borne trials cheerfully, out of love to God 
and man. Your very nature has been love; 
and the God who made you can find no fault 
in you, but pronounces you perfect, even as 
his well-beloved Son. 

O sinner ! how different you are from all 
this! Yet we say to you, on the authority 
of God himself, that you may today be just 
as fully accepted of God as if you were all 
that you have now imagined yourself to be. 
How can this be? The answer is, Your sins 
are atoned for. "He hath made Him to be 



[48] 



sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might 
be made the righteousness of God in him." 
Is there any flaw in that righteousness? 
Would your own be any better? Then, if 
you will take Christ as your Saviour, your 
sins shall no more stand in the way of your 
salvation than if they had never been. If 
you will give your heart to the righteous 
Lamb of God, his righteousness shall avail 
for you. Glorious truth! that you can be 
saved, not by what you achieve, but by what 
you believe in ! 

Have you ever thought that the atone- 
ment of Christ is so full, that no one will ever 
be lost merely because he is a sinner? So it 
is. "He is the propitiation for our sins; and 
not for ours only, but also for the sins of the 
whole world." The only thing that destroys 
a soul is want of faith. Even the heathen 
are not lost because they are sinners, but be- 
cause they have not the spirit of faith. They 
do not hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness: if they did, they would be filled. The 
atoning work of Jesus makes faith the only 
condition of salvation. Past sins have no 
power to keep us out of heaven. Nothing 
but unbelief can do that. 

If, then, you are not saved, it will not be 
because you have sinned against the holy 
law of God, not because your heart is corrupt 
and needs cleansing, not because your trans- 

[49] 



gressions have been as numerous as the stars 
in heaven, but because you will not love and 
trust Him who has atoned for all your sins; 
who says to you, "Though your sins be as 
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; 
though they be red like crimson, they shall 
be as wool/' 



[SO] 



THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH 

The greatest want of our age is Chris- 
tian faith, — faith in God, faith in the Bible, 
faith in the atoning Saviour. The want per- 
vades all classes. Naturalists need faith to 
keep them from putting God afar off, hidden 
behind the long train of his own laws. His- 
torians need it that they may interpret his- 
tory as God's providence. Statesmen need 
it that their laws may be like the laws of 
God. Ministers of the Gospel need more of 
it that their preaching may unveil the world 
to come. Every Christian needs it in large 
measure, in order to labor well, and live hap- 
pily. Every earnest soul seeking to be saved 
needs it; for, without faith, it is impossible 
to please God. 

It has been said a thousand times, that 
faith is not the mere assent of the intellect 
to the truth; and it is true: but some go to 
the opposite extreme, and affirm that faith- 
is independent of all evidence addressed to 
the intellect, and has nothing to do with 
reason. The believer — to use a low expres- 
sion often applied to this subject — must "go 
it blind." 



[51] 



Let us see whether faith is a sign of men- 
tal blindness and stupidity, or of clear, far- 
reaching sight. Faith is an outgrowth of 
the social nature of man. It is, in human 
souls, what the attraction of gravitation is 
in matter. It is not the close union of love; 
but it is that confidence in another, without 
which the intercourse which ends in love 
could never spring up. 

To have confidence, to trust, to believe, 
is as natural to man's social nature as to 
remember, to compare, to reason, are to his 
intellectual nature. Man was made to trust, 
as truly as he was to think or to love. 

But whom shall man trust? Reason an- 
swers, "Since he is a social being, by his 
very constitution, he should trust every 
other worthy being." 

But whom shall he trust most? Reason 
answers again, "Since his fellow-men are im- 
perfect and dependent, he should trust most 
the perfect and independent Being, — the 
Holy, the Just, the Good." 

Christian faith, then, has this one root: 
"I believe in God." He who can not say this 
is making a wreck of his social and moral 
nature as truly as of his religious capacities. 
Man's soul needs God as much as, and far 
more than, it needs the society of earthly 
fellows. Reason affirms that man's being is 
an absurdity if he has no God to lean upon. 

[52] 



Now, see how this faith in God branches 
out into all kinds of Christian belief and 
trust. "God will not deceive me," the soul 
says, "and he has given me strong evidences 
that my Bible is his word. Miracles and 
prophecy support its claim; the life of Jesus 
supports it; the history of his religion con- 
firms it; and my own heart does the same, 
because through the Word I have learned to 
draw near to God." 

Faith in God thus produces faith in the 
Bible; and the whole system of salvation by 
the cross of Jesus is embraced with the same 
confidence with which we say, "I believe in 
God." 

Do unbelievers ask, "Why do you believe 
the Bible?" A short answer is, "Because in 
the Bible we find God." Do they wonder 
why illiterate Christians hold fast to the 
atonement of Christ, in spite of captious or 
even solid objections? The answer is, that 
this fact and doctrine, and all the mysteries 
of the Gospel, lie in the inmost sanctuary 
of their hearts, enshrined with their faith in 
God himself. 

This is in the highest degree reasonable. 
Unbelief is atheistic, and atheism is absurd, 
because it makes man an absurdity. It is 
as reasonable for man to trust in God as it 
is natural for the planets to revolve around 
the sun. And, if we trust in him, there must 

[53] 



be intercourse, communion; and the com- 
munion must be through the Son, Jesus 
Christ, whose life and death are the sub- 
stance of the whole Bible. Thus the high- 
est faith and the highest reason are satisfied 
in the Gospel. 



S4J 



FAITH A MATTER OF THE HEART 

Much of the current unbelief is a matter 
of sentiment, or mere impression. Miracles 
are disbelieved because they strike the mind 
as improbable, — as out of harmony with the 
spirit of the present age. The great doc- 
trines of grace and redemption are denied 
for the same reason. 

On this ground, modern infidelity seems 
to be, at first sight, very shallow. But let us 
not underestimate our foes. Mere sentiment 
may be very deep-rooted. The spirit of the 
age is a power that shows itself not so much 
in strict logic as in undefined tendencies of 
thought and feeling. The reasons for un- 
belief are superficial, if you choose to look 
only at the surface; but, if you will look at 
their sources in the mental and moral habits 
of the soul, you will find them deep enough, 
and hard enough to be up-rooted. 

Unbelief springs from the character and 
disposition. This is why you can not re- 
move it by mere pressure of argument. But 
it is also true that faith is a matter of dis- 
position, or inclination. It springs from the 
heart more than from the head. Logic can 

[55] 



not destroy it any more than it can destroy a 
child's love for its mother. If we understand 
this well, it may help us in meeting unbelief. 

Why do we believe in God? Is it because 
we have demonstrated his existence and at- 
tributes with mathematical accuracy? No: 
it is because a belief in him is a law of our 
being. As truly as the eye compels us to see, 
the heart compels us to believe in God. You 
may put out your eye, and you may harden 
and pervert your heart; but, in both cases, 
it is self-destruction. 

The Holy Spirit in regeneration restores 
the perverted heart, and makes it reach out 
anew after God. The sinner is inclined to 
believe. Miracles are not stumbling-blocks, 
because he is disposed to look for wonderful 
manifestations of God in human history. 
The atonement is embraced, because he is 
prepared to expect some such exhibition of 
God's love and justice. The mysteriousness 
of doctrines is no bar to their reception, be- 
cause he loves to believe God's word when 
he can not see the special reason for that 
word. 

Now, all this is in the highest degree 
reasonable. Infidelity has not a sound word 
to say against it, even on the score of reason. 
It is according to man's nature to have faith 
in God, and to have that faith branch out, 
and cover all the teachings of God's word. 

[56] 



Unbelief is unnatural. It is a monstrous 
product of sin. 

The way, then, to meet the unbelief of 
the heart, is by cultivating the spirit of faith. 
Argument will not conquer it, because it is 
not based upon conviction, but upon incli- 
nation. 

We must place faith upon a more positive 
moral footing than is often done. Faith is 
not knowledge, is not science. Faith is a 
social and moral, not a mere intellectual vir- 
tue. We do not believe that two and two 
make four, that a ball is round, that fire 
burns : we know these things. Faith is trust, 
confidence. Its higher objects are persons, 
not things. Its one highest object is God. 

The spirit of our age is critical, scientific, 
incredulous. More: it is truth-loving, so far 
as intellectual truth is concerned. We honor 
the zeal with which men of science search 
for facts, for the absolute truth, in their de- 
partments. Yet this noble love of scientific 
accuracy has made some confound scientific 
truth with spiritual truth; leading them to 
investigate a doctrine as they would the 
orbit of a planet, or a specimen in botany, or 
a fossil skeleton. Spiritual truths must be 
brought to the test of the heart, — its deep 
longings and real wants. 

We say these things, not to discourage 
argument with opposers of Christianity, but 

[57] 



to show the direction which the argument 
should take. Aim at the heart. Touch the 
conscience. God has not made man all in- 
tellect. Don't be afraid to address the moral 
part of man. He who framed the Gospel 
framed the human soul to be susceptible to 
it. Offer Christ as the one who gives rest to 
the heart. Preach salvation as something 
that carries its own evidence with it, as a loaf 
of bread does to the hungry. Faith is prin- 
cipally the act of our moral powers. This is 
why we are guilty if we do not believe. This 
is why we are saved when we do believe. 



[58] 



HAVE YOU A LITTLE FAITH? 

"Lord, I believe: help thou mine un- 
belief." This is not a prayer to be satisfied 
with; but it is vastly better than no prayer. 
"O ye of little faith!" said Jesus to some. 
How much better for them than that he 
should say, "I know you not!" yet it would 
have been better still could he have said, as 
he did to one, "Great is thy faith." 

Reader, have you a little faith? Is this 
the most that you can say? — 

"Yet save a trembling sinner, Lord, 
Whose faith, still hovering round thy word, 
Would light on some sweet promise there, 
Some sure support against despair." 

Praise God that you have as much faith 
as that; yet do not be satisfied with it. All 
faith is little when compared with the great 
results that flow from it. "If ye have faith 
as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto 
this mountain, Remove hence to yonder 
place, and it shall remove; and nothing shall 
be impossible unto you." No one's faith 
ever seems great enough to save a soul. Its 
strength is all in the might of Him who is 
the object of faith. 

[59] 



Do not, then, despise your own faith be- 
cause it is feeble. It is a precious plant, 
though it may have a sickly growth in the 
uncongenial soil of your heart. God has 
planted it there; Jesus' blood has watered 
it : there is life in it, eternal life for your soul. 

But, more than all, let it grow. Some 
appear to think that faith is a momentary 
act, that links us to Christ, and then leaves 
us. How far from the truth! Faith grows 
in us just as fast as our knowledge of Christ 
and his truth grows. Faith converts our in- 
tellectual apprehension of Christ into prac- 
tical and experimental acquaintance with 
him. Let us see how this is. A man hears 
of Christ as a Saviour. He knows but little 
more than the simple fact that Jesus is a 
saviour from sin. This, with more or less 
strength, he believes, and therefore says, 
"Lord Jesus, save me." His hearing this 
was one thing; his believing it, another and 
quite a different thing; for it led him to act. 
Now, suppose this believing man sets him- 
self to learn more of Christ. He reads his 
instructions and commands, and believes; he 
studies the atonement, and believes just as 
fast as he learns. He believes in God's love, 
believes all the promises and threatenings; 
he believes in God himself with all his heart, 
and in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son; he be- 
lieves that every duty enjoined in the Bible 

[60] 



is for man's good and God's glory; and every 
disclosure respecting the future world he be- 
lieves as firmly as if he saw it with his own 
eyes. 

This is growing faith; that which seeks 
for light, receives it heartily, and acts upon 
it. Have you, then, a little faith? Nourish 
it. Let the seed which has fallen into some 
good corner of your heart grow. Give it the 
soil of truth, the warm atmosphere of love: 
let it bear fruit in active labor. 

Your faith may be feeble because you do 
not study the character of Christ enough. 
Your Bible is faith's treasury and armory. 
Do you go to it daily to find something to 
believe? Is it the spirit of faith, or is it curi- 
osity or duty, that prompts you to read the 
Bible? 

Your faith may be feeble because you 
do not act upon it. Faith grows by fruit- 
bearing. Do you believe at all in Jesus as a 
saviour ? Then go to him, talk with him, pray 
to him, commune with him, stay with him. 
Then this faith will grow. Do you believe 
that salvation is a priceless boon, and is for 
others as well as you? Then try to bring 
others to Christ, and this faith will grow, 
and the Gospel will seem more full and pre- 
cious to you every day. 



[61] 



CONVERSION 

"You know I don't believe in conver- 
sion/' said one to us the other day. To 
which we replied, "Most certainly you do 
believe in conversion, because you believe in 
a change of character, and that people some- 
times undergo a very great change of char- 
acter, and that this change may begin in a 
moment." 

The word has been so domesticated, so to 
speak, in the prayer-meeting, and so much 
confined to strictly religious speaking and 
writing, that its proper meaning is obscured. 
Yet this meaning is preserved in its full 
force, and no other word in the language can 
quite take its place. Conversion is not in- 
version, which means turning over; nor sub- 
version, a turning upside down, destroying; 
nor per-version, turning aside to a wrong 
use; nor di-version, turning hither and 
thither: it is, literally, a turning all together, 
and thus denotes a turning-about of the 
whole man. Picture to yourself a man going 
the wrong road. He hurries along at the top 
of his speed. You call to him: he hears and 
answers, but goes on. There is no conver- 

[62] 



sion. You call again: he stops, and looks 
around; but that is all. That is not conver- 
sion : it is mere face-turning. Not till he 
turns his feet and whole body, and begins to 
travel in the opposite direction, is he con- 
verted. 

This is a good word, then, to express the 
change which comes from being born again. 
Conversion is a turning from the world to 
God. The sinner is traveling the road of for- 
getfulness of God. He hears behind him the 
voice of the law. He fears its penalty; but 
on he goes. He hears the voice of Jesus, say- 
ing, "Come unto me." He fears a heavier 
penalty for rejecting his love; but on he goes. 
He hears the "still small voice" of the Spirit. 
His whole soul is stirred as never before by 
the demands of the law and the higher de- 
mands of the cross. The world says, "Go 
on as you are:" the Spirit says, "Turn, turn; 
why will you die?" Now comes the moment 
of all the moments of his life. He stops: 
that is nothing, if he does no more. He 
turns, and follows Jesus as his Saviour and 
Master; and heaven rejoices over his conver- 
sion. 



[63] 



THE SURRENDER 

It is a common thing for the Christian to 
give up his will to the Divine will. But there 
is in his experience no surrender like the first 
one. Not that conversion is always a con- 
scious act of submission; but at some time or 
other, not very long at least after conversion, 
true piety will have occasion to take this 
form. 

Some stand just outside the kingdom of 
heaven because they foresee the conflict, and 
are unwilling to meet it. They are told that 
peace and joy lie beyond: they partly believe 
it; but they are happier in indifference than 
in the terrible strife between conscience and 
will that must intervene. 

But what is surrendered when the soul 
consciously gives all up to Christ? When 
an intrenched army surrenders, we expect an 
account of all the forts, artillery, small-arms, 
flags, ammunition, stores, and men, that are 
given up. The forts and flags may be good 
for nothing in themselves ; but they must be 
abandoned to the victor. 

So the sinner surrenders, in the first 
place, his devices for salvation, and his pride 

[64] 



in them. They are good for nothing to the 
victor, except as spoils, — flags to be laid up 
as trophies over Satan; but surrender would 
be but a sham without them. The sinner 
has plumed himself on his merits, or at least 
his comparative innocence. He has built 
(on the sand) his fortress of self-righteous- 
ness, and raised high on its walls his banner. 
It must come down. "Not by works of 
righteousness which we have done, but ac- 
cording to His mercy He saved us." 

The sinner also surrenders every form of 
opposition to Christ and his cause. An army 
gives up its weapons of war. This costs 
many a soldier a pang. The sinner has been 
resisting Christ, piling up excuses for un- 
belief, cherishing doubts, dealing sharp and 
heavy blows upon the faults of Christians, 
forming ungodly associations, and indulging 
in wicked habits. All these must be given 
up. He must say, "Lord Jesus, I will be 
thine enemy no longer. I offer no more 
excuses. I have left the faults of Christians 
to look after my own. I renounce every 
thing inconsistent with thy service. " 

The sinner also surrenders himself. 
What does this mean? Look at a conquered 
army. The soldiers are still men: they have 
not given away their manhood, but they 
have submitted to new authority. When we 
give ourselves to Christ, we place ourselves 

[65] 



at his disposal; not blindly, for we know his 
character, but fully. "I am thine, O Lord!" 
is our thought. "Take me and save me and 
use me for thy glory. Whatever I do, I 
will do because thou biddest me; whatever I 
suffer, I will bear because thou sendest it: 
thy law shall be my law, and thy will my 
will. So help me, my God and Saviour." No 
human analogy can fully express this giving 
up of the very self and soul to God. Senator 
Foot, on his dying bed, repeated the lines, — - 

"Here, Lord, I give myself away; 
Tis all that I can do;" 

and then said, "I begin to understand that 
this comprehends all." 

Yes, that is all; but what is embraced in 
this if one does not die, but goes out into 
every-day life? What will come of such a 
surrender? We answer in one word, Obedi- 
ence. "If ye love me, keep my command- 
ments." "Take my yoke upon you." Do 
every duty out of love to Christ. 

But why speak so much of our giving, 
since it is God that gives salvation, and we 
receive it? Because we can not receive sal- 
vation "by the blood of Jesus" unless we 
give up every other reliance; we can not take 
God to our hearts without giving our hearts 
to him; we can not enthrone God without 
giving up idols ; we can not say, "My beloved 
is mine," without adding, "I am his." 

[66] 



WHAT IS A NEW HEART? 

It would be a great service to the world 
if one could convince thinking people that 
a change of heart is not an unnatural change. 
Every once in a while, it comes out that 
worldly men look upon regeneration as a 
sort of spiritual violence; an inward convul- 
sion, that wrenches the soul out of its easy 
and natural position. 

Now, the word "natural," as applied to 
man, has two meanings. It designates, in 
the one case, the nature of man as a fallen, 
sinful being; in the other, the nature as God 
first gave it. Go out into your orchard, and 
find a tree that always bears gnarled and 
bitter apples. You say it is natural for that 
tree to do so. But is it natural for apples to 
be crabbed and imperfect? Is that the ideal? 
— that what they were made for? If by 
some process, whether as sudden as a stroke 
of lightning or gradual as the influences of 
air and soil, that tree should be transformed 
so as to bear only plump and luscious fruit 
without speck or flaw, would you find fault 
with the change as unnatural? It is not ac- 
cording to the old nature; but that was 

[67] 



vitiated: or if you choose to consider the 
bad state, the original one, then the tree was 
previously in an undeveloped state, and the 
change consisted in bringing out its hitherto- 
hidden capacities. On either supposition, 
the change was no violence to the nature of 
the tree. It was either a development or a 
restoration of its true nature. In no sense of 
the term was it unnatural. There is a change 
of nature, using the word in a popular way; 
but no change of species, nor even of variety. 
The tree still bears apples, and the same kind 
of apples; but they are good instead of bad. 
The tree has a new producing power in it. 
You may not know exactly where to locate 
this new power; but in looking for some- 
thing that pervades every part of it, from 
root to top-most leaf, you would not be far 
wrong in saying, "The tree has new sap." 
This would not be very scientific; but it 
would be intelligible and expressive. 

Let this tree illustrate the change of 
heart in man. Our Saviour has said, "Every 
good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a 
corrupt tree bringing forth evil fruit/' The 
task which Jesus undertakes in man is to 
turn corrupt trees into good ones. If any of 
our readers deny the fall and ruin of man, 
we will not now dispute on that point, ex- 
cept to say that it is a thousand times more 
hopeful to suppose that man once had a 

[68] 



perfect nature to which he may be restored, 
than to suppose he was never higher in the 
moral and spiritual scale than he is now. 
Make a drunkard forget that he was ever an 
innocent child, and you destroy his last hope. 
Man, as man, is not a sinner. That is the 
bright side of the fall. 

But, even if you deny total depravity, — 
i. e., total absence of true godliness, — you 
can not deny that man, as you now see him 
in the world, needs a great change of char- 
acter. Men are selfish, cruel, mean, malic- 
ious, passionate, lustful, proud, revengeful, 
undevout, ungodly. These faults defile their 
many noble natural qualities. Either one 
of them is capable of bringing unutterable 
misery upon the world. What is needed? 
That these men should cease to be men, and 
become angels or seraphim? No: as the tree 
needed new sap, these men need a new heart. 
A corrupt tree does not need to become a 
gourd or a vine, but simply a good tree. It 
will be no less a tree, but more. When we 
say that a man needs a new heart, we mean 
that he needs a new producing power, so 
that the fruit he bears will be morally and 
spiritually good. He will be no less a man, 
but more of a man. Can any thing unnat- 
ural be found in this? There may be a sort 
of violence put upon corrupt habits; but the 
deeper nature, that belongs to man as God's 

[69] 



creature, is not violated, but wonderfully 
nourished and strengthened. 

Whence comes the new heart? We com- 
monly and truly say that it comes from the 
Holy Spirit. But what is the work of the 
Holy Spirit? To form us after the likeness 
of Jesus. Christ's character is the pattern of 
the new heart. He is the power, which, by 
the Spirit, transforms men. To have a new 
heart, then, is to be somewhat Christ-like. 
To have it perfectly is to be perfectly like 
Christ. Is there any thing unnatural, 
counter to man's true nature, in this? 

This reminds us of the remark, that 
Christians are no better than other people. 
Then they need a new heart as much as other 
people. There is such a thing as the new 
heart, because there is such a being as 
Christ; and there are multitudes whom he 
has powerfully impressed, and who are earn- 
estly striving to follow him. True, Chris- 
tians are very imperfect. Go into your 
orchard again. There stands a tree that is 
growing better and better every year. It is 
poor enough yet; but you have nursed it 
carefully because you like the kind, and you 
think more of it than of any other tree. You 
believe in it. A faulty Christian is like that 
tree, except that you treat him differently. 
Instead of helping and encouraging him, 
you try to put him down by making light of 

[70] 



his only hope of betterment, — a new heart 
by faith in Christ Jesus. 

Some appear to think that a change of 
heart is unnatural because it is supernatural. 
As well say that the change in a tree is un- 
natural because it is produced by the in- 
fluences of the sun and sky. God shines 
upon the soul, and gives it a new warmth 
and life and growth. Its true nature is 
awakened by this supernatural light. Laz- 
arus was dead. Christ's voice called him to 
life. His new life was certainly natural: the 
power that restored it was supernatural. All 
men are by nature (this secondary, fallen 
nature) "dead in trespasses and sins." It is 
a divine power that gives the new life in 
Christ; but the new life is not unnatural. It 
is the most natural thing in the world that 
men should be restored to life by power from 
on high. We say "restored;" for how can 
those be "dead" who never were alive? 

A word on the question, Is it right to 
pray for a new heart? Some very logical 
inpenitent sinners are afraid it is not right 
for them, because one who has not a new 
heart already can not pray aright. But such 
logic is of very little consequence. Theoreti- 
cally, of course, a man, while he is deter- 
mined not to have a new heart, can not pray 
for it. But this makes no difficulty; because 
he wouldn't if he could. Theoretically, no 

[71] 



man can come to God, and say to him, "I 
have no desire to come to thee; but I pray 
that I may have some desire to come." This 
is absurd enough; but practically there is no 
difficulty. The cardinal rule is to pray for 
what you want. If you want a new heart, 
pray for it. It is of comparatively little ac- 
count what is the language or logic of your 
prayer, if you will only draw nigh to God. 
In sincerely praying for a new heart, you be- 
gin to have it; but it is something that you 
want to have more and more. So keep on 
praying for it as long as you live. You will 
never outgrow the prayer, "Create in me a 
clean heart, O God! and renew a right spirit 
within me." Whether, so far as your own 
consciousness goes, the new impulses, new 
love, new hopes, new principles, and all that 
make up the new heart, come as suddenly 
as the lightning, or as gradually as the dawn- 
ing light, is a small matter compared with 
the fact, that the old is gone, and the new 
has taken its place. 



U2] 



ANXIETY FOR UNCONVERTED 
FRIENDS 

Is there a stronger expression in the 
Bible than that used by Paul in the ninth 
chapter of Romans? — "I could wish that my- 
self were accursed from Christ for my breth- 
ren, my kinsmen." If God would accept 
such a sacrifice, he would not hesitate to 
lay his own soul on the altar. 

Did Paul mean that he would be willing 
to turn his back upon the blessed Jesus, his 
Master fervently loved and religiously 
adored, and call the years since he met him 
near Damascus a dream, belie all the sweet 
experience of his love, take up again the sins 
of his youth, breathe out again threatenings 
and slaughter against the saints, live and die 
a persecutor, and go into eternity hopeless 
and Godless? Paul did not mean all this in 
cool statement; but he meant that there was 
nothing that was his own that he would not 
give to save his brethren. Salvation itself, 
considered as happiness, he would resign in 
a moment. He would not break one of God's 
precious promises involved in his own salva- 
tion; he would not consent to sin willfully 

[73] 



that good might come from it to his breth- 
ren: but his anxious love for them was so 
great, that, at that moment, nothing but giv- 
ing up Christ and heaven for them could 
express it. 

Yet Paul was a happy man, though he 
carried such a burden on his heart, — "sor- 
rowing, yet always rejoicing." Like the 
stout oak, that rises higher toward heaven 
the deeper it plunges its roots into the dark 
earth; so, the deeper his heart sunk in sor- 
rowing sympathy for lost men, the higher he 
rose in communion with Him who is the 
source of joy. He was happy in God, whose 
purposes did not require that Paul, or the 
feeblest of Christ's lambs, should be lost in 
order that men may be saved. 

There are Christians now who feel in re- 
gard to their unconverted friends somewhat 
as Paul felt. They can not express their 
longing for the salvation of these their kin- 
dred. Before God, they repeat one name 
after another, and plead till words are lost 
in groans. Such anxiety can not be borne 
long without relief. God gives relief, either 
by the salvation of the objects of their 
prayers, or by the sweet repose of faith with- 
out the immediate blessing. 

There are some, without doubt, now 
reading these lines, who are carried to the 
throne of grace every day with an earnest- 

[74] 



ness that no tongue can express. Dear 
reader who are thus carried to God on a 
bleeding heart, is it not time for you to begin 
to pray for yourself? 



|75| 



SATAN'S PUZZLES 

There are some difficulties that arise so 
often in the way of seekers after Christ, that 
Christians have come to regard them as 
Satan's standard efforts. For instance, he 
has several puzzles that are brought out reg- 
ularly from one generation to another to 
confuse inquirers' minds. One of these is 
the following: 

"If I am to be saved, I shall be, do what 
I may." 

Now, this puzzle is well adapted to the 
use to which it is put. In the first place, it 
calls off a person's attention from things 
that he can understand to things which he 
can not understand. Anybody can under- 
stand what it is to love God, to trust in 
Christ as a Saviour, to pray to God, to do 
good to his fellow-men. He can understand 
what duty is. If his mind should be allowed 
to dwell on these things, he might, almost 
before he was aware, begin to love God, trust 
in Christ, and do his duty. Therefore he 
must be drawn away from these simple 
things, and plunged into reflections on "what 
is to be." There is a mystery about "what 

[76] 



Is to be" that is fascinating. If a sinner will 
only wait till he settles the nature and means 
of "futurition" before he repents, his repent- 
ance will be indefinitely postponed. Meta- 
physicians have discussed the matter much, 
and probably will in time to come; but we 
never heard of a metaphysician who resolved 
to settle it before he began to do simple and 
obvious duties. 

Another excellent thing about this puzzle 
for Satan's purposes is, that it is deceitfully 
framed so as to encourage doing nothing for 
salvation. "If I am to be saved, I shall do 
what is necessary to this:" that is the gen- 
uine form of stating the matter. The words, 
"Do what I may," are absurd, and yet are 
thrown in as if they belonged there. With- 
out them the enigma would lose its sparkle, 
and fall flat except in very speculative minds. 
This "Do what I may" is the charm. This 
gives license to sin till the fated hour of con- 
version arrives. But it is absurd; for every 
action has its bearing on the future. The 
future result is no more certain than the 
present action which leads to it. The true 
answer to this part of the puzzle is, "If I 
am to be saved, I shall believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ; and the quicker I do it, the 
better." 

Another interesting thing about this puz- 
zle of Satan is, that it represents salvation 



[77] 



as being a matter of fate merely, and thus 
different from other things for which men 
strive. Suppose it were put in this form, 
"Whatever is to be will be:" that would spoil 
it; for it would let out the secret. If salva- 
tion, in regard to its future certainty, is no 
different from every thing else, then the ar- 
gument would apply as well to every object 
that men strive for. The farmer need not 
plow or sow; for, if a crop is to be, it will be. 
The merchant need not sell any goods; for, 
if he is to be rich, he will be. A traveler need 
not set out from home; for, if he is to go on 
a journey, he will go. The charm is broken 
the moment it appears that future certainty 
in the mind of God is as great in regard to 
the farmer's crop as in regard to the saving 
of his soul. It is as opposed to common 
sense to refrain from the use of appropriate 
means in the one case as in the other. 

The true answer to this part of the puzzle 
is, that "the secret things belong unto the 
Lord our God; but those things which are 
revealed belong unto us and to our children 
for ever, that we may do all the words of this 
law" (Deut. xxix. 29). Duty is ours: the 
future is God's. 

"Get thee hence, Satan!" 



[78] 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT— EXAGGER- 
ATIONS OF SCRIPTURE 

An eloquent preacher of evangelical con- 
nections was recently discoursing on the 
woes of the lost, painting in glowing colors 
the miseries of those who die impenitent, 
when suddenly he came to this "most lame 
and impotent conclusion:" "Whether/' said 
he, "all this woe will be critically eternal, I 
dare not say/' 

The circumstance suggested to us one 
way in which great damage is often done to 
the awful truth of future punishment. The 
argument so rife, now, against the eternity 
of future punishment, is just this: Hell is 
so horrible, that it can't be eternal. To make 
the argument good, the opponents of the 
doctrine surpass the Bible by a long distance 
in depicting the horrors of hell, transferring 
our thoughts from the sublime grandeur of 
the court of infinite justice to a thousand 
petty tortures unworthy of the name of pun- 
ishment; and then we are asked if all this 
will be everlasting. 

This might be expected of avowed op- 
ponents; but the friends of the doctrine are 

[79] 



not always free from the same error. We 
shall never forget a certain address to a Sab- 
bath school, which the kind-hearted and zeal- 
ous speaker began thus: "Children, there 
will be degrees of suffering in hell; but all 
will suffer just as much as they can possibly 
bear." He reiterated the statement with the 
greatest emphasis of manner, but did not 
state where he could find its equivalent in 
the Bible. He then went on to be more par- 
ticular in illustrating the pains of the lost 
by such imagery as he thought children 
could understand; but throughout he was 
"wise above what is written," and succeeded 
only in degrading the awful to the horrible. 
Such petty exaggerations extend even to 
the eternity of punishment. Who has not 
heard such hypotheses as this: "Suppose an 
angel should come to this earth once in a 
million years, and take away a grain of sand 
each time: when he shall have taken away, 
at this rate, the last particle of our globe, 
eternity will have only begun?" After an 
illustration of this kind, the reader or hearer 
will sometimes be informed that this con- 
veys but the faintest conception of eternal 
duration, which is true; and what, then, is 
the use of it? Satan makes efficient use of 
it in confusing the imagination, and making 
the trembling soul fear that there must be 
something wrong about such an incompre- 

[80] 



hensible length of punishment. What would 
be thought of one, who, in the interest of 
morals, should go among the vicious, illus- 
trating to them, after the style we have indi- 
cated, what is meant by imprisonment for 
life ? Would justice or law or morality gain 
any thing thereby? 

The truth is, that there is a majesty, an 
awful sublimity, as well as a wise sobriety, in 
the scriptural representations of future pun- 
ishment, which man never tries to mend 
without marring them. Almost all these 
representations are manifestly figurative. 
All are indefinite as to the nature of the suf- 
fering. It is enough for us to know that the 
soul, which can not be paid for by a world, 
may be lost; that the finally impenitent go 
into "everlasting fire," "everlasting destruc- 
tion," "everlasting punishment." That the 
punishment will be without end is as plain as 
words can make it; but the particulars of the 
punishment God has not revealed. Is it not, 
then, strange that man insists on making 
the unrevealed the reason for denying the 
revealed? 

Will it not surprise a vast multitude at 
the judgment-day to find that they are not 
on the throne, and that God is? Here on 
earth they have called him to account for 
what he has revealed, and more especially 
for what he has not revealed; and how 



[81] 



strange it will seem to find all this reversed, 
and to feel for once that it ought to be re- 
versed ! 

We are not disposed to pass lightly over 
the subject of hell on the ground that mod- 
ern ears are too delicate to hear about it: but 
we say, Heed the Scriptures; make no at- 
tempts to improve upon them; and, when- 
ever a rebellious heart turns to the imagina- 
tion, saying, "Oh! paint me such a hell that 
I can't believe in it," then remember that 
God will not bend his justice to flatter 
human imaginations, and that wisdom and 
piety unite in saying that our God will do 
according to his word, and will do right for 
ever. 



[82] 



THINK MORE OF THE RESUR- 
RECTION 

If we may judge of people's habitual 
thoughts by their public prayers, it is clear 
that the precious and glorious doctrine of 
the resurrection is not made much of by a 
majority of Christians. They think a great 
deal more of a happy death than of a bliss- 
ful resurrection. Go into almost any prayer- 
meeting, and notice how many prayers close 
with an earnest desire, that, after we have 
finished our earthly life, we may be received 
to heaven; and how few make any hearty 
reference to the resurrection. It seems to be 
a habit of modern Christianity to set the 
heart on the glory immediately following 
death, and make only a cold doctrinal ac- 
count of the awakening at the last day. 

It is not difficult to explain this. It is a 
blessed thing "to be absent from the body, 
and to be present with the Lord;" and, as we 
are accustomed to put the "last day" far into 
the future, it is not strange that our hearts 
seize fondly upon the nearer bliss, especially 
as that is associated with so many loved ones 
"not lost, but gone before." 

T83] 



But this dismissing of the resurrection 
from our experience and our fervent worship 
is not right. We ought to love the doctrine. 
We shall, if we think of it rightly. It may 
satisfy our present desire of happiness to 
think only of the rest and joy of the interme- 
diate state; but have we no heart to dwell on 
the glory of God in completing the work of 
redemption? We may say that heaven, after 
death, is enough for us; but is it enough 
for God's glory? Does it consummate his 
mighty plan of salvation? Moreover, if he 
has promised to us a higher glory at the last 
day, is it becoming in us to let it pass from 
our hopes, and to take up with any thing 
inferior? 

Christianity is a revelation, and it was 
not revealed as reaching its end in death. 
What would one think of Christ's work if 
he had not risen from the grave? The 
apostles, whose mode of looking at this sub- 
ject is our law, set their hearts upon the res- 
urrection. Paul was "in a strait- betwixt 
two" as to living or dying; but he never was 
in a strait about desiring the "redemption 
of his body." He says, "Not for that we 
would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that 
mortality might be swallowed up of life." 
When he gives thanks to God, "which giveth 
us the victory," he does not mean the victory 
by which the soul is rescued, and the body 

[84] 



left to decay; for "when this corruptible shall 
have put on incorruption, and this mortal 
shall have put on immortality, then shall be 
brought to pass the saying that is written, 
Death is swallowed up in victory" (i Cor. 
xv. 54). 



[85J 



GOD'S PROVISION FOR OUR 
PRAYERS 

It is generally believed that the Christian 
doctrine of prayer is beset with great difficul- 
ties. These difficulties are so often alluded 
to, so often dodged in discussion, and so 
often poorly met, that they are, we think, 
greatly overrated. 

There are, of course, many questions 
about prayer which we can not answer, be- 
cause we can not fathom the thoughts of 
Him who answers prayer. We can not trace 
out that whole chain of which a sinner's 
prayer is one link; but we can clearly see that 
there are no difficulties in regard to the effi- 
cacy of prayer which do not beset equally 
the doctrine of a universal Divine Provi- 
dence. 

How can God change his conduct, his 
laws, his eternal purposes, so as to answer 
the prayers of his short-sighted creatures? 
This is the stumbling-block. 

Some would remove it by saying that the 
change is not in God, but wholly in our- 
selves. The sun does not rise, but we rise to 
it, and are blessed by its light and warmth. 

[86] 



When we are prayerful, whatever happens 
to us is a blessing; consequently, our prayers 
are answered, not in kind always, but in fact. 
The objection to this solution is, that it flies 
directly in the face of Scripture, and de- 
stroys the doctrine of prayer under the name 
of explaining it. It is true, that when we are 
prayerful, and full of love to God, whatever 
happens to us is a blessing, according to the 
promise, "All things work together for good 
to them that love God;" but it is also true, 
that prayer is the means of obtaining par- 
ticular desired blessings, according to an- 
other promise, "All things whatsoever ye 
shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall re- 
ceive." No doubt there is a connection be- 
tween these two promises; but neither one 
must be swallowed up by the other. Both 
must stand. 

Another solution of the difficulty is, that 
both the prayer and the answer to it are a 
part of God's eternal plan, as cause and ef- 
fect; and therefore the answer does not im- 
ply any change in God's purposes. The 
prayer was foreseen and fore-ordained as a 
cause of which the answer is an effect, ac- 
cording to his gracious promise. 

Now, we hardly know what to say of this. 
There is no doubt that the position is true, 
and that, logically, it answers the objection; 
but we would really like to see the first man 

[87] 



who ever found rest to his heart in it. It 
is one of those pieces of logical armor which 
one takes down for battle, but never thinks 
of carrying about with him for daily com- 
fort. The knot is cut, but with an ice-cold 
blade that chills you while you wield it. We 
do not recall any thing in Scripture that 
bears much resemblance to it, and we can not 
think of the place where we would choose 
to insert it. 

But there is an answer just as logical as 
this, and which has both Scripture and the 
human heart in its favor. Let us begin with 
this statement: — 

God provides for the wants of his crea- 
tures. 

Think of this a moment, reader. Is it 
true? Say Yes or No. You can not say No, 
without coming near atheism. This antici- 
pation of our wants is as minute as God's 
providence. A similar provision extends 
even to the lower animals. Now, it belongs 
to man's nature, as God made him, to ex- 
press his wants. If God had made man 
dumb, and devoid of all power of expression, 
he could then have provided for man's life 
and growth as he does for the life and 
growth of the tree; but man would have been 
a totally different being from what he now 
is. He would have been constitutionally in- 
capable of prayer. As man now is, however, 

[88] 



it is impossible, in the view of reason, for 
God to provide for his wants, without making 
provision, by that very fact for his prayers. 
These prayers may be offered to idols, 
may be expended in vague desires that have 
little to do with religious worship; but they 
are the constant exponents of man's wants. 

True, God is not limited to our prayers. 
He who "giveth to the beast his food, and to 
the young ravens which cry," can give bless- 
ings to those intelligent creatures whose 
prayers are no better than the inarticulate 
distress of the raven; can give to those who 
stifle the voice of prayer: yet it remains true, 
that God, in providing for his creatures, pro- 
vides for their prayers. Their prayers no 
more disturb the order of his providential 
government than their wants do. That the- 
ory of Providence which omits prayer makes 
man either utterly heedless of his own wants, 
or incapable of expressing them, or unwill- 
ing to express them to the only Being who 
can supply them. Let him who will, defend 
such a theory as rational. 

But we must go further than this. God 
brings his children to see their wants, and 
to make them known to him. This com- 
pletes the rational view of the efficacy of 
prayer. Without divine help, man's wants 
are blindly and vaguely laid open. Perhaps 
there is not in the whole Bible a passage on 

[89] 



prayer more full of tender suggestions than 
this: "Your Father knoweth what things 
ye have need of before ye ask him." A great 
part of the discipline of life is to bring us to 
desire and ask for those things which God 
knows beforehand that we need. Before we 
learn to pray for pardon and eternal life, he, 
with a yearning heart, shapes the events of 
our lives, so that we may see and seek our 
highest good. He knows what we need ; but 
we do not, and we seem determined never to 
learn. A wonderful leading that is, which by 
wrath and by love drives and draws us to 
pray for salvation; and great importance 
does our heavenly Father put upon prayer, 
when he declines to save our souls until he 
brings us to pray for it in Jesus' name. 

We can not prolong this article by show- 
ing how the Holy Spirit indites all true 
prayer, and how prayer for the commonest 
temporal blessings may be as truly and 
minutely efficacious as prayer for salvation 
and spiritual blessings; but we will simply 
add, that the reason why so many prayers 
are unanswered in a precise manner is be- 
cause we who pray are not wise enough to 
understand always our real wants. It is 
these, and not our fancied wants, that our 
Father provides for; it is these that he is 
constantly teaching us to pray for. We 
learn slowly; but let not our slowness and 

[90] 



dullness impeach the blessed doctrine of 
prayer. 

Unconverted friend, God is providing for 
your wants. The cross is his great provi- 
sion, and he knows that you need it. How 
long shall he wait before you also find out 
that you need Christ? 



[91] 



FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 

The most distinctive mark of Christian 
prayer is that it is offered in the name of 
Christ, and urged for his sake. The phrase, 
"For Christ's sake/' is almost as often con- 
nected with prayer as the word "Amen;" but 
those who use it do not always feel its power. 

What do we mean when we say, "For 
Christ's sake," "For Jesus' sake?" 

A part of the deep meaning is found in a 
tender reference to the sufferings of Christ. 
Have you, brother, poured out your soul be- 
fore God, bringing to him every want and 
distress, leaving nothing unsaid that you can 
put into words, and, for what you can not 
say, letting your heart lie open to God's 
knowledge and love? Then you can not rise 
from your knees without at least, for once, 
reaching out your hand, and grasping the 
cross, saying, "For Jesus' sake." Even if you 
have not been pleading distinctly for forgive- 
ness of sin, you can not pray well without 
gathering into your heart a sense of the sym- 
pathy of a suffering Saviour. You can not, 
must not, take Christ's name in vain by for- 
getting what it cost him to give you leave to 

[92] 



use his name in your prayers, and to go be- 
fore the Father for his sake. 

With the cross, then, in mind, you will 
feel that the chief meaning of "For Christ's 
sake" is that he has earned a glorious re- 
ward, and that you seek a share in that 
reward as a gift of grace. Jesus deserves 
something for the cross. What shall that 
something be? Surely he has a right to 
choose; and he has chosen that his reward 
shall be abounding grace to sinners; and he 
has sealed the sure promise, "Him that 
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." 
It is his will, yes, the one desire of his heart, 
that the reward of his humiliation should be 
the salvation and comfort of the lost. There- 
fore, with holy boldness, the believer may 
thrust his hand deeply into the treasury of 
Heaven's love, and bring forth large bless- 
ings; for such is the will of Christ. Jesus 
would be for ever without a reward if poor, 
lost sinners did not take blessings in his 
name. 

"For Christ's sake," in this view, means 
almost the same as "For the honor of 
Christ." Is not this a plea that is dear to the 
Father's heart? He gave his Son to die; 
and shall he not give that for which he died? 

It appears thus that the name of Christ 
is the grand argument that gives force to 
prayer. There is an appeal in that name to 

[93] 



the divine consistency which can never be 
refused. "He can not deny himself." He 
can not shut up the fountain of his love. He 
can not take back his promises. Dear 
brother, if you can so connect your prayer 
with the purpose for which Jesus came to 
earth, as to say, "For Jesus' sake," you have 
the mightiest motive that earth can use or 
heaven feel. The cross is a pledge that God 
can not violate. 

Are you praying for pardon ? This is just 
what Jesus came to bestow. Think you God 
will do what he has done for this purpose, 
and then turn you away? No. If he seems 
to delay, say, "For Christ's sake;" say, 
"Jesus died, — I have no other hope;" say, 
"The cross is proof of thy love; thou canst 
take back the cross." Use the weapons of 
argument that he has put into your hands. 
The cross is the key to heaven's door. Take 
it, and use it. Fear nothing, if you can only 
say with sincerity, "For Jesus' sake." Only 
be sure that you do not handle this tremen- 
dous argument dishonestly and insincerely. 

Are you praying for the conversion of 
sinners? With what earnestness may you 
do this "for Christ's sake?" Who can love 
the soul as Jesus does? Is your heart almost 
broken for that wandering soul that is rap- 
idly nearing destruction? God has a loving 
eye upon him too. He sent his Son to die 

[94] 



for him. Perhaps he is only waiting "to be 
inquired of by you respecting him. Per- 
haps he is wondering why you are so slow 
to take up the all-prevailing plea, and to say, 
"O God! for Christ's sake, save him; for thy 
name's sake, which has been revealed in 
Christ; for thy mercies' sake, which have 
been revealed in Christ, and which are un- 
changeable; for thine honor's sake, which 
is pledged to the work of salvation in Christ 
Jesus ; for thy glory's sake, which will shine 
throughout eternity because of mercy to the 
guilty." 

It is a wonderful fact in mechanics, that, 
by a skillful arrangement of levers, a single 
pound will lift many thousand pounds. It 
is accomplished by a careful observance of 
the laws of God in Nature. So do our 
prayers, though feeble in themselves, avail to 
move Heaven, because they are linked to 
God's love, and to the laws of his grace, 
through the cross of Christ. 

"For Christ's sake" reaches down to the 
lowest deep of human want and woe. It is 
applicable also to the least of our real needs. 
We ask a blessing on our daily meals for his 
sake. We give thanks for each morning's 
light for his sake. Everywhere the cross 
stands beside our blessings, and every good 
gift comes to us because Christ died; and 
he is now seeing "the travail of his soul," 

[95] 



and having "the joy that was set before him" 
as the reward of his sufferings, — the joy of 
giving eternal life to the lost. 

Dear brother, go on using that precious 
phrase, "For Christ's sake;" and let it be one 
of the deep studies of your thoughtful hours 
to fathom its meaning more and more. Those 
words will be a part of your new song in 
heaven; for shall we not say then, "Unto 
Him that loved us, and washed us from our 
sins in his own blood, and hath made us 
kings and priests unto God and his Father, — 
to Him be glory and dominion for ever and 
ever?" 



[96] 



VERBAL INSPIRATION — 
ANALOGIES 

When we claim the verbal inspiration of 
the Bible, we mean by it that the words as 
well as the sentiments of the Bible are God's 
gift to men. "All Scripture is given by in- 
spiration of God." This does not imply that 
the words are any different in themselves, 
or in their relations to thought, from other 
human words. The words are included in 
the divine inspiration because they are essen- 
tial to the desired result; viz., a written rev- 
elation. The words were not usually dic- 
tated to the writers as one dictates to an 
amanuensis. This is superficial: inspiration 
goes deeper. It begins with the thoughts 
and feelings and all the faculties concerned 
in speaking or writing. It extends to the 
words employed, because these are parts of 
the whole result. Each word may seem a 
small matter; but the whole is not small, and 
the whole must have its parts. 

We love to trace the analogy, in this re- 
spect, between the Bible and Divine Provi- 
dence. The events of our lives can be all 
traced down to very minute actions. You 

[97] 



take a morning walk: can you tell how many 
steps you take, and how many muscles con- 
tract and expand minutely in taking them? 
Yet "the steps of a good man are ordered 
by the Lord." Nothing can be said on the 
subject of God's particular providence more 
expressive than this : "Even the hairs of your 
head are all numbered." 

And Nature is like Providence. You look 
upon a green meadow. It is easy to think 
carelessly of that whole surface as growing; 
but how about each tiny blade, each twisted 
grass-bud, each thread of root? That great 
growth comes from these myriad little 
growths; and He, the Infinite One, "maketh 
grass to grow." 

One may bewilder his mind by trying to 
comprehend this infinitesimal range of di- 
vine power; but it is impossible to set limits 
to the minuteness of God's work. Therein 
is a part of his wonderful greatness. "None 
can stay his hand, or say unto him, What 
doest thou?" whether he works in the secret 
chambers of the human soul or in the solid 
earth. Let us not doubt, but adore. "The 
hiding of his power" in little things is amaz- 
ing; yet, if nothing is too small to be, it is 
not too small to be noticed and ordered by 
the Lord. 



[98] 



PANTHEISM:— WHAT IS IT? 

Atheism has long been infamous; but 
there is another "ism," supposed by many to 
be too deep for the ordinary mind to under- 
stand, which is in many circles fashionable. 
Its attractiveness is increased by the suppo- 
sition that it is a sign of profound thought. 
We refer to pantheism, which deserves to be 
as infamous as atheism, and perhaps would 
be if it were as well understood. The one is 
a shallow falsehood, the other a deep false- 
hood. 

We propose, in a few words, to drag it 
out from its profound obscurity, and bring 
it distinctly under the condemnation of 
Christian common sense. For convenience 
we will suppose our readers to be entirely 
ignorant of it, and will therefore exhibit it 
in an elementary way. 

The word "pantheism" is derived from 
two Greek words, "pan," all, and "theos," 
God, just as "atheism" is derived from "a," 
no, and "theos," God. Although the word 
originated in the eighteenth century, the 
system is almost as old as the writings of 
Moses. In one of the early Hindu books are 
found these statements: "The universe is 



[99] 



only an expansion of the Divine substance. 
The human spirit, like the Divine, is eternal 
and uncreate. The highest object of relig- 
ious meditation is to discover that the wor- 
shiper is himself God, or a part of God." Let 
us bear in mind, then, at the outset, that 
pantheism is heathen-born. 

What is pantheism? Its fundamental 
proposition is, that the universe is essentially 
one substance, and that one substance is 
God. God is all, and all is God. But what is 
meant by this language? Is the world that 
meets our senses, the things that we see, 
hear, touch, taste, and smell, an essential part 
of God? Are these changing things of man 
and nature, brick walls, crumbling rocks, 
tossing waves, and flitting clouds, parts of 
the unchangeable Deity? "Oh, no !" says the 
pantheist, "these are forms of manifesting 
the one substance, God." Here begins the 
fog, the darkness; but we will follow him, 
and make it light, lest he charge the dark- 
ness to our vision. We must see what he 
means by this one substance. 

I pick up a piece of flint or quartz. Science 
tells me that this is a compound substance. 
One part is a dark gray solid, called silicon, 
and the other part is an invisible gas, called 
oxygen. These substances enter into a mul- 
titude of other compounds besides quartz, 
and it is supposed that oxygen alone makes 

[100] 



up one-half of the solid earth. Science has 
discovered about sixty simple substances or 
elements, two of which we have just men- 
tioned. Now suppose it should be found that 
these sixty, granting that they are all, could 
be reduced by analysis, first to twenty, or 
ten, then to one. Then it would be true that 
all the myriad forms of the material world 
are essentially one; — modifications or mani- 
festations of one element or substance. This 
is not pantheism; but let us take one more 
step and see whither it will lead us. Having 
reduced all matter to one element, let us turn 
to the realm of mind; let us suppose that 
both matter and spirit by some unknown 
process could be found to be essentially one 
substance. "Now," says the pantheist, "if 
matter and spirit are essentially one, then 
there is but one essence in the universe, and 
that one is God." The granite of the Alps, 
the air we breathe, and the soul which thinks, 
are all essentially one, and all God. 

God is simply the life, the soul, the sub- 
stance of the world. This is pantheism. 

We do not mean to say that pantheists 
arrive at their system in the way which we 
have followed in illustrating it. They disdain 
the help of experimental science in reaching 
their deep and dark conclusion; and well 
they may; for, for them to argue from chem- 
ical analysis, would be to seize a two-edged 

[101] 



sword by the blade. Science increases the 
number of chemical elements every year, 
thus pointing directly away from the one- 
substance theory. They claim that the pure 
reason, the power of ascertaining first prin- 
ciples, affirms that pantheism must be true, 
and upon all whose pure reason condemns 
the whole system they look with pity as the 
victims of religious prejudice. 

But what are the attributes of this so- 
called God? Has he intelligence? "Yes;" 
it is answered. Has he separate existence? 
"No." How then is his intelligence embodied 
and manifested? "Ah!" says the pantheist, 
"God's intelligence is embodied in all things, 
but chiefly in man. Man is the highest form 
of godhead." This is pantheism. 

And how can God reveal himself to man? 
On this theory there is no need of a book, a 
Bible for this purpose. Man has only to look 
within, to reflect upon himself. God is self- 
conscious in man, and thus man differs from 
a stone or a tree. There is no need of the 
incarnation of Jesus Christ, for we are all 
incarnations of God. There is no need of 
miracles, nor are they possible; for all events 
are equally miraculous, being the movements 
of one being, and conformed to invariable 
laws. This also is pantheism. 

And what of the character of man? The 
question is needless, for he has no character 

[102] 



distinct from God's; therefore he can not sin. 
God acts through him. As God acts through 
the solid earth in geologic changes, through 
the planets and stars in the heavens, and 
through the plants in growth, so he acts 
through the human soul in moral manifesta- 
tions. This also is pantheism. 

Where then is a God to love and serve? 
Down in the dark elements of nature, with 
no heart, no law, no government, no mercy, 
no justice, no Father's hand, no words of 
guidance, no personality, — a mere principle 
of life and intelligence, of which man is the 
highest development. 

This "all"-system is a fatal vortex engulf- 
ing all faith and religion. There are no 
miracles, because all, forsooth, is a miracle; 
no incarnation, for all persons are God incar- 
nate; no Bible, for all books are Bibles; no 
inspiration, for all are inspired; no God, for 
all is God. The wise will beware of falling 
into even the outer circles of this treacherous 
whirlpool. Look out for the man who lays 
his hand ever so lightly on any of the prerog- 
atives of a personal God. Look out for your- 
self, reader, if you are that one. You might 
as well have tried to satisfy the hunger of 
our starving soldiers by telling them that 
every thing is food, as try to satisfy your 
soul by saying that every thing is God. Pan- 
theism is a deceitful form of atheism. 

[103] 



FROM UNITARIANISM TO PAN- 
THEISM 

It would be a good service to our times 
if one could show clearly that the denial of 
any of the supernatural facts of Christianity 
trenches upon one or more of the attributes 
of God. It might lead doubters to ponder 
well the end of their path before they enter 
on it. 

Take, for example, the denial of the in- 
carnation. This leads, by two opposite 
routes, to Pantheism. The first starts from 
the idea that the incarnation is impossible. 
Jesus Christ can not be "truly God and truly 
man," because God is infinite, and man is 
finite. Now, the great question of the infinite 
and finite must be handled carefully. It is 
not disposed of as easily as a sum in arith- 
metic : if it sits so loosely on the mind as that, 
it would better be let entirely alone. The 
whole problem of creation, and the separate 
existence of a finite universe, is involved in 
it. Tell us, if you can, how the infinite God 
could, at a particular time and place, bring 
into being a finite thing, — a man, a worm, 
a world. All contact between the infinite 



[104] 



and finite is inexplicable by the human un- 
derstanding; but, if you deny it, you are 
within a step of that heathen system which 
confounds God with Nature, and denies his 
separate existence and personality. It is no 
harder to explain the existence of the God- 
Man than to explain the existence of man. 
The first Adam is as difficult a problem as 
the second. If God could create manhood, 
he could assume it. Creation and redemp- 
tion are both sublime mysteries. 

The other and more modern road to Pan- 
theism is that incarnations are universal, a 
part of the fixed system of the world. M. 
Renan goes over the whole distance on a 
single page. "Jesus," says he, "is the son 
of God; but all men are so, or may become 
so, in diverse degrees. . . . One breath only 
penetrates the universe: the breath of man 
is that of God." The author of the "Unisons 
of the Liberal Faith" says, "We believe in 
God's incarnation in the human soul, not in 
God's interposition in history." 

Such expressions, which we could multi- 
ply, show what is meant by those who call 
Jesus divine, while they scorn the doctrine 
which gives the term its highest meaning. 
It is an easy homage of words, when they 
who render it claim the same divine honors. 
And, if all men are divine, we have a right 
to ask, "What, then, is God?" And we are 

[105] 



answered: "We believe in the Fountain- 
Spirit, in the causeless Cause, Light of light, 
and Life of life, and Soul of our soul." 

We would not trouble our readers to look 
upon these hideous features of modern un- 
belief were it not that so many are imposed 
upon by the deceitful honor often paid to 
Jesus, and by that mockery of piety which 
professes to think highly of the image of 
God in man, while it robs the Most High 
himself of all his glory. It is time for 
thoughtful Christian people, "plain people" 
as well as the educated, to set their faces as 
a flint against every form of mock-Chris- 
tianity. A Christianity without Christ is 
bad enough; but a Christianity without God 
— pray, what can that be? 



[106] 



SYSTEMS, NOT MEN 

"There are good men of every creed and 
of no creed," so we often hear it said; and 
it is true: but, when the statement is used 
as an argument in favor of religious indiffer- 
ence, it is worse than a bare falsehood. It 
is a falsehood wrapped in the garb of Chris- 
tian charity, — a wolf in sheep's clothing. It 
is true that there are good men in every 
nominally Christian denomination. There 
are Catholics whose hearts pierce through 
the dense fog of man-worship that beclouds 
them, and worship God in spirit and in truth. 
There are Unitarians who lean on Jesus 
Christ with a better faith than some who 
stoutly defend his divinity. There are Uni- 
versalists who are far enough from trusting 
the salvation of their souls to Universalism. 

But, if there are good men in every sect, 
why is not every sect, every system of doc- 
trine, good? There are several reasons. 

Good men are sometimes out of place. 
They feel it themselves, but do not always 
know where to find a better place. Lot was 
in Sodom. He vexed his righteous soul in 
consequence, but staid many years never- 
theless. 



[107] 



Good men may have errors of the head 
which do not greatly affect their hearts ; but 
it does not follow that the same errors would 
be harmless to others. 

Good men may be much more numerous 
in some sects than in others. There were 
but a "few names" of good men in Sardis. 

Men may be called good when they are 
merely moral; while they are not full of the 
fear of God. One truly spiritual man should 
outweigh hundreds who have only a worldly 
uprightness. 

Also some good men have embraced 
errors after their characters had become 
matured. Their goodness is to be credited 
to an education under a different system. 
They have not quite lost their good moral 
momentum. 

The true position is, that we should esti- 
mate the system of religion which is offered 
us, and not be satisfied with knowing that 
there are some good men professing every 
system. If good men are involved in error, 
love the men with true brotherly affection, 
and hate their errors none the less, but per- 
haps a little more. 

Here lies the true exercise of Christian 
charity. Charity is love. It is personal. If 
you are acquainted with a Universalist 
whom you believe to be a Christian, you will 
love him, not with a cold good-will, but with 

[108] 



warm, brotherly love; but his errors you will 
abhor and fight against. Love the man, and 
hate the system, — hate it all the more be- 
cause it has got hold of so good a man. You 
are never bound to have charity for systems. 
Bring them to the test of God's Word and 
Spirit with unsparing severity. 

This principle has an application to 
morals as well as religion. There are prac- 
tices such as theater-going, card-playing, 
and dancing, which are indorsed by some 
good people. What then? Have charity 
for the individuals, but spare not the systems 
which they indorse. Some are not aware of 
the danger there is in organized worldliness. 
They look no further than the pleasure of the 
moment, without asking, "Of what system 
does this form a part ? Does this amusement 
bear a Christian stamp? or is it intensely 
worldly, and everywhere recognized as 
such?" We can not always judge of par- 
ticular actions by themselves alone, much 
less by the fact that some good persons en- 
gage in them. We must see what general 
plan of life they best accord with, to what 
system of moral training they belong, — 
whether they harmonize better with the 
Bible, or the novel; with the Spirit, or the 
flesh; the world to come, or this world. 



[109] 



WHAT IS RATIONALISM? 

Rationalism is the rebellion of the intel- 
lect against God; just as disobedience is the 
rebellion of the will, and impenitence is the 
rebellion of the feelings. 

Some have the notion that rationalism is 
found only among the learned. We think 
differently. Every one who sets up his own 
reasonings above the word of God, whether 
learned or unlearned, young or old, is guilty 
of rationalism. 

We do not now intend to specify those 
opinions which we consider rationalistic. It 
will be far better if we can point out the 
marks of a rationalizing spirit. 

Rationalism is unwilling to receive relig- 
ious truth by faith. Now one needs but to 
glance at the Gospel to see that such a spirit 
is not Christian. Christianity itself is called 
"the faith." We are said to "walk by faith." 
The word "faith" is used more than two 
hundred times in the Epistles, as describing 
an essential thing in the Christian religion. 

He who has faith is disposed to receive 
truth from God. He has a believing attitude 
before God. He takes it for granted that 
God can tell him something that he needs 

[110] 



to know. His heart is open, like Lydia's. 
He is prepared to appreciate the evidences 
of the divine authority of the Bible, and then 
to receive, with the utmost docility, what 
God says in the Bible. This is the relation 
of faith to religious truth. In what beauti- 
ful harmony is it with piety and spiritual 
worship! But rationalism reverses all this. 
The confirmed rationalist is not disposed to 
receive truth from without, even from God. 
He maintains a critical, not believing, atti- 
tude. He takes it for granted that God can 
tell him nothing, except so far as God and 
he are one. He is not prepared to appreciate 
the evidences for the Bible, and his only 
teacher is himself. 

It will be seen that this evil strikes deeper 
than mere doubts about particular doctrines. 
It concerns the whole attitude of the soul 
towards God. Here, then, is a simple test 
for every one: "Do I desire, not simply to 
master the truth, but humbly to receive the 
truth from God? Is it my most earnest wish 
to learn of him? and am I ready to take, 
without disputing, whatever he reveals?'' If 
we can not answer these questions in the 
affirmative, and hold ourselves to the answer 
without equivocation and with true delight, 
then we must look out for our faith; for we 
are drifting away from God. Our tenets 
may be orthodox; but they are faithless. 

cm] 



Rationalism may sometimes be detected 
by the want of a humble spirit in searching 
after truth. We require of little children that 
they show deference to the opinions of their 
parents and superiors. We know that they 
are able to understand many statements and 
decisions of their elders before they are able 
to comprehend the reasons and principles 
involved in those statements. A child can 
believe that the tides are caused by the moon, 
long before he understands the complete 
philosophy of the tides. 

Now, if an adult is wiser than a little 
child, much more is God wiser than the 
wisest man. God, therefore, can make state- 
ments of truth to man, which the latter can 
understand so far as to believe them, with- 
out fully comprehending and analyzing those 
statements. He is like the child wondering 
how the moon can raise the tides. 

To refuse to believe what we can not fully 
comprehend is to deny that we are as chil- 
dren before God. Here is the pride of ration- 
alism. 

"But," says one, "I am not an infant. I 
am in the maturity of my powers. I can 
understand truth. My soul revolts at the 
thought that I am in the infancy of spiritual 
life. I am Godlike. I am in the front rank 
of intelligent being." 

There is the secret. Man is unwilling 

[112] 



to own that God is infinitely above him. Oh 
pitiable pride! We are indeed akin to God, 
made in his image, capable of understanding 
what he reveals, and of serving him; but to 
say that God can not tell us a part of his 
ways, and keep back a part, so that we may 
believe what we can not fully comprehend, — 
this is poor man's pride. Vain, pufled-up, 
spoiled child, that thinks himself a Newton 
because he belongs to the same race with 
Newton! Vain, pufled-up man, that thinks 
himself a god because he is in God's image! 
The antidote to rationalism, whether 
among the learned or ignorant, is just this, — 
humility. The truly humble, while they 
honor their reason, and employ it to the ut- 
most in learning truth, feel how liable they 
are to err; how much they need light in 
religious things from a higher than human 
source. They believe in God, and that he 
reveals himself to man in whatever way he 
pleases: and they are willing to receive that 
revelation in good faith; for they feel the 
need of it. They feel like little children be- 
fore God, and are thankful for every precious 
word he gives them. They accept the Bible, 
not in a captious spirit, nor with a deter- 
mination to bend its contents to their no- 
tions, but with a simple desire to know what 
God says in it, that they may believe and 
obey. Being convinced (as one may be by 

[113] 



its history alone, without once having looked 
between its covers) that it is God's book, 
they come to it as learners, not as judges. 
They do not say, "Is this doctrine what I 
would have taught?" but, "Is this, O God! 
what thou hast said? Then it is enough: 
I believe." 

Our more thoughtful readers can pursue 
and apply these thoughts for themselves. 
The conflict between faith and rationalism 
is raging throughout Christendom. Many 
a humble person is having a share in it. Per- 
haps some mother, who, with her child in 
her arms, has had patience to read this arti- 
cle carefully, has formed a resolution to 
consecrate her child to faith. Then God 
alone can tell what victories shall come to 
his cause in consequence of that resolution. 
The world is not in special need of great 
reasoners; but it pines for more faith. Let 
us praise God for our reasoning powers; but 
it is better to believe well than to reason 
well. 



[114] 



READING BOTH SIDES 

The reading of infidel books is some- 
times justified by the plea, that, to be fair, 
we must always read both sides. 

Let us look at this plea candidly. What 
does it mean? No less than this: that we 
must read with equal thoroughness and en- 
tire impartiality what is written both for 
and against Christianity. The same rule 
must, of course, be applied to all important 
moral and religious subjects and to the doc- 
trines of the Bible. We must read as much 
against the Atonement as for it; as much 
against future punishment as for it; and so 
of the others. 

Now, we assert at the outset, that those 
who claim this rule in behalf of infidelity 
do not themselves practice it. We never 
saw or heard of an infidel bookstore that 
kept books in favor of Christianity; nor of 
an infidel who lent books on both sides, or 
had both sides fairly represented in his 
library. How does this happen? Not always 
from an intention to be unfair, but because 
these persons feel that the Christian side is 
amply represented by the pulpit, the major- 

[115] 



ity of the press, and various other influences 
which permeate nominally Christian com- 
munities. With all these things against 
them, they claim a hearing in books, and 
make books their fortress. But acceding 
to this claim is not reading on both 
sides: it is reading on one side, and trusting 
to the general influences of education on the 
other. If only one side of a case should be 
presented to a jury, and they be left to their 
previous general impressions for the other 
side, would that be hearing both sides? If 
the rule is to be carried out at all, book must 
be matched against book on the same sub- 
jects, and, so far as possible, on the same 
points. To take a young man who has 
received an ordinary religious education, 
and thrust into his hands books containing 
objections to his faith which he never heard 
of, but which may have been abundantly 
answered by able writers, and call that read- 
ing both sides, is a mockery of truth. Let 
us call things by their right names. The 
real question is, Shall people employ their 
time in reading infidel books? Those who 
disbelieve the Bible say, "Yes." Christians 
say, "No." The only answer that we wish 
now to make to this question is this, — that 
fairness does not require such reading. It 
is not necessary, in order to favor a correct 
opinion, that one should know every thing 

[116] 



that can be said against it. There is nothing 
of importance outside of the sphere of the 
senses, on which all men agree. In science, 
mental philosophy, art, politics, and mechan- 
ics even, as well as religion, they differ 
greatly; and great is the number of those 
who are willing to write books setting forth 
their opinions. Now, fairness requires that 
we do not condemn a man or a book un- 
heard; but it does not require that we spend 
our precious time in giving either a hearing. 
No man can read a thousandth part of the 
books published; all of which, however, were 
very valuable in the eyes of the authors. We 
must select: we have means of selecting 
without actual reading, else a hundred life- 
times would be insufficient for our purpose. 
Before God, we are bound to choose the best 
books in our power, in view of our wants as 
rational, religious, and immortal beings. 

We must choose on some general princi- 
ples. In general, the rule in the choice of 
books is the same as in the choice of com- 
panions. No law of impartiality requires us 
to spend an hour attentively listening to a 
profane or obscene talker. No more are we 
obliged to read an immoral book. No prin- 
ciple of fairness requires us to listen to one 
who assails our deepest and most sacred con- 
victions, or to read his book if he writes one. 
A book that advocates adultery or murder 

[117] 



we have a right to discard by its title. Equally 
may we one that proposes to do its best to 
rob us of our hope of eternal life. 

The main points of difference between 
Christianity and Infidelity are well under- 
stood by those who read Christian books. If 
we wish to go nearer the bitter fountains, 
and bring ourselves into closer contact with 
the spirit of infidelity, — the spirit that cruci- 
fied our Lord; if we choose to drink in the 
sneers and taunts as they come fresh from 
unregenerate and depraved hearts; if we 
wish to have the memory of them mingle 
hereafter with our holiest seasons, — our jus- 
tification for doing so can not be found in 
any demands of impartial justice. 

With the exception of the few whose 
duties in the defense of Christianity require 
them to read what they loathe, and whose 
motive is their protection, our duty is plainly 
to read the best books, instead of an equal 
number of the best and the worst. Nor must 
we forget that there is within us an evil 
heart, that catches eagerly at whatever ex- 
cuses sin. However much the intellect may 
pride itself on impartiality, the heart, in its 
unrenewed state, is a partial judge and a 
deceitful witness. It needs to be guided and 
controlled by the truth, and not by an equal 
mixture of truth and error. First in our need 
stands the Bible; next, those books which 

[118] 



will help us most in living according to the 
Bible. In this reading age, if we would live 
well, we must read well. We must read the 
best. 



ni9i 



A RAILWAY INCIDENT 

Some of the travelers who went to the 
White Mountains last summer by the Bos- 
ton, Concord and Montreal Railroad, may 
remember a zealous tract-distributer who 
made his appearance on the train, and fur- 
nished his pages to all who wanted them, 
and to some who did not want them. His 
general appearance was fair, and his manner, 
at first, courteous. His tracts were received 
pleasantly, as tracts generally are. By and 
by, however, their contents excited indigna- 
tion, and provoked discussion. They pro- 
fessed to be published by a "Liberal" organi- 
zation, — not liberal Christian, but "liberal" 
without the Christian. More openly infidel 
publications could not well be imagined. 

The condemnation of the passengers 
found various modes of expression. One 
called out, "You ought to be shut up in prison 
for assailing public morality!" — "Yes," he 
replied, "you Christians did such things 
once; but you daren't do it now." The re- 
mark which called out this rather skillful 
retort seemed to us unfortunate; but the re- 
sult was instructive. Our tract-agent soon 

[120] 



became so excited, that he could not be con- 
tent with ordinary language, and found relief 
in profanity. 

It was a novel scene, and, on the whole, 
impressive. Here was a missionary laboring 
in the cause of humanity and religion. For 
a missionary to lose his temper would not 
be the strangest thing in the world; but for 
him to indulge in profane swearing while 
about his work was strange. We revolved 
the matter, and our thoughts ran thus : — 

From one point of view, he was consist- 
ent. If the Bible is not true, and there is 
no God and no hereafter, he need not trouble 
himself to treat with reverence the name, 
attributes, and word of God. The profane 
swearer who professes to believe in God and 
the Bible is most inconsistent and foolish in 
flying in the face of the command of Him 
who has "power to destroy both soul and 
body in hell." 

From another point of view, he was very 
inconsistent. Why should one who believes 
there is no God seek to emphasize his speech 
by referring to the Most High, and to the 
awful sanctions of his holy law? Was it a 
mere yielding to common language? and, if 
so, why to that kind of common language? 
Or was it the remains of an early religious 
education left to sour and corrupt by contact 
with an unbelieving heart? 

[121] 



We were led to think, also, what kind of 
morality infidelity fosters. That profane lan- 
guage certainly did not help the cause main- 
tained in those tracts. People will ask, "Is 
it the tendency of such sentiments to multi- 
ply profane swearers? There is swearing 
enough to appall our hearts now, with all 
that the Bible and Christianity oppose to it." 

Or must we hold that the swearing of 
infidels is altogether a different thing from 
that of other people, as some would claim 
for the polygamy of Mormons, and the free 
love of communists? So far as we could 
judge, this man's profanity was just like that 
with which the ears of the public are sadly 
familiar. It seemed of the common order, 
and likely to nest well with its usual immor- 
alities. 

Some infidels have claimed a high style 
of morality. When we hear the claim here- 
after, we shall always think of the swearing 
tract-distributer. It is as easy to defend 
swearing as to refute the Bible; but is that 
morality high which can logically defend a 
vice so low? True morality is founded on 
true religion; for obedience to God is alle- 
giance to every virtue. 

Another thought that came to us was 
this: That poor man needed the help and 
grace of God. He was young and intelligent. 
Though warped and blinded on one subject, 

[122] 



he had some intellectual skill. He denied 
Christianity; but he illustrated one of its 
main positions, — that man needs divine aid 
in becoming good. The exhibition he made 
of himself must have been humiliating, on 
reflection: but he had no Saviour to go to, 
like Peter, to be forgiven; and none to say to 
him for future encouragement, "My grace 
is sufficient for thee." On his knees, that 
night, he could not lay hold of a mighty 
hand, and plead for help to govern his tem- 
per and his tongue. 

Poor, lonely, helpless brother! come to 
that Jesus whom you despise, and you can 
have his help yet. We do not know your 
name, or where you live; but we shall meet 
you by and by. We pray that it may be on 
the right hand of the Judge. 



[123] 



ENLARGE THE CIRCLE 

A general has his bodyguard! so has the 
minister. You can not be long connected 
with his church without rinding out who 
they are. You go to the weekly prayer- 
meeting, where you find that a church can 
easily tithe its numbers, if not its property; 
you glance at the subscription-paper; you 
visit the mission school and chapel, and you 
find everywhere the same "pillars." A few 
do the main outward work of the church. 
The rest are in the background, either from 
necessity or unwillingness. 

These things are simple facts. They are 
embarrassing facts to those who desire to 
increase the efficiency of our churches. Does 
the pastor appoint an extra meeting, or es- 
tablish any additional labor for the neglected 
and irreligious? Down goes the yoke upon 
the necks of those who already bear the bur- 
den of the whole church. Does some "statis- 
tical secretary" array a vast numerical mem- 
bership against small Christian results? 
These same tender consciences accuse of un- 
faithfulness, and spur up to greater crosses, 
while the majority show no signs of uneasi- 

[124] 



ness or of greater activity. Sometimes it 
makes one's heart faint, and draw back from 
any attempts at giving increased efficiency 
to Christian labor, from sheer pity for those 
who are already overburdened, but who will 
be the first, if not the only ones, to respond 
to new calls. Nor does there seem to be any 
thing at present working to correct this evil. 
It is constantly perpetuating itself. New 
converts, as they enter the church, are di- 
vided into the active and passive, as genera- 
tions of converts have been before them. 

So much for the evil. Is there a remedy? 
There certainly is no remedy, and need be 
none, for the fact that some in the church 
are leaders. This is right. So God has or- 
dained in every legitimate community. The 
officers of a church are leaders; and others 
are leaders by reason of their gifts and 
opportunities: any one is a leader who can 
muster a single follower in the path of Chris- 
tian labor. The great trouble is that the 
Christian laborers in our churches are not 
leaders, for they have no followers ; they are 
substitutes. The minister-general and his 
staff do not lead, but they do the fighting 
while the army stands still. There was a 
time when merely to join this army openly 
was to fight against the malice of perse- 
cuting enemies, and to preach Christ with 
power. Then the Church was on the defen- 
ces] 



sive: now it is aggressive. Then to stand still 
was to stand firm for Jesus ; not to flee was to 
follow: now we prove false unless we ad- 
vance. The suffering age is past ; the work- 
ing age is upon us. 

There is hope, that, in view of the wants 
of an ungodly world, the circle of laborers 
in each church will be enlarged. Those who 
now work for Christ will work more and 
more; they love to: but they will not work 
alone. One and another will step out of the 
ranks of the idlers, and timidly at first, but 
with growing strength and ease, join them- 
selves to the working force. We look for 
this. It is not too much to hope for, if the 
Lord pour out his Spirit upon us. Let active 
Christians look for this, and seek for recruits 
among those who, it may be, need only a 
little skillful leading and helping to be 
greatly useful. There is much reserved 
strength in our churches which needs to be 
drawn out, and the fault is not wholly with 
the backward ones. They are not always 
well led. 

Our great and pressing need, including 
every other, is an abundant outpouring of 
the Holy Spirit; and one of the blessed fruits 
of his presence that we look for is a great 
enlargement of those circles that represent 
the working power of each church. A greater 
proportion of new converts will be laborers; 

[126] 



and old converts will be reconverted to new 
views of life and duty, and of the mission of 
a Christian church. The kingdom of God is 
like "leaven," not merely in the world, but 
in the Church. "The whole lump" must be 
leavened. The process will doubtless be 
gradual; but, in the case of many churches, 
has it yet begun? 



L127J 



SPIRITUAL 

What is it to be spiritual? Can one be 
spiritual, and also thoroughly wide-awake 
and practical? Can one be spiritual without 
being moral? Is spirituality a peculiar type 
of piety, or essential to all true piety? Does 
it belong to the emotional part of man solely, 
or as well to the active principles? A man 
who is fervent in prayer, fond of religious 
meditation, and seeks always to maintain a 
calm and peaceful mind, is sometimes called 
spiritual, even if he is "slothful in business, " 
unmindful of the calls of benevolence, or, for 
the sake of his own peace of mind, winks at 
crime. 

This assumed and false contrast between 
active duty and spirituality has tended to 
bring the latter into contempt. Spiritual 
men, it is thought, pray much, and do little; 
care more for piety than morality; love peace 
better than justice; cultivate their own 
graces, and let the world go to ruin. But 
persons of this stamp are not spiritual, and 
never should have the name. They are 
spiritual who are led by the Holy Spirit; 
"who walk not after the flesh, but after the 
Spirit." But the office of the Spirit is to form 

[128] 



us anew after the image of Christ in all 
things. He then who most resembles Jesus 
is the most spiritual. 

"But," says one, "is there no such thing 
as a spiritual frame of mind?" Certainly; 
but this is only a part of spirituality. In 
taking this part for the whole lies the mis- 
chief that has marred one of the noblest 
and most sacred of religious terms. There 
is such a thing as a benevolent "frame of 
mind," which may stop short of benevolent 
action; an honest "frame of mind," which 
sees the right, while the wrong is pursued: 
so there may be a spiritual bent in the 
thoughts and feelings, which is not devel- 
oped into spiritual action. 

Spiritual is not the same as devotional, 
but includes it. If you know a man who ap- 
pears fervent in prayer, but fails in active 
duty, you may, perhaps, call him devout, but 
not spiritual. The spiritual man is both fer- 
vent and active. He has a hand as well as 
a heart. He imitates Christ in doing good, 
as well as in spending the night in prayer. 

"Spiritual" is one of the most compre- 
hensive words in the vocabulary of redemp- 
tion. Whatever is most worthy of man's 
immortal spirit, most opposed to corrupt 
flesh, most in accordance with the leadings 
and promptings of the Divine Spirit, — that is 
spiritual. 

[129] 



ALL BUT THE NAME 

What is a "home prayer-meeting ?" No 
matter; but we know of a church that held a 
meeting without giving it any name, and the 
exercises were about as follows: — 

The leader read a passage of Scripture 
which referred to Christian labor; and, after 
a few remarks of his own, he called upon the 
superintendent to speak in regard to the Sab- 
bath school. He then asked if the superin- 
tendent of the mission school had any thing 
to say. Next, reports from the weekly 
neighborhood prayer-meetings were called 
for. 

Somehow or other, these reports were all 
interesting. They were not formal or of- 
ficial, but familar statements of the work 
they were doing, what they wanted to do, 
and their need of more workers, and of the 
constant prayer and sympathy of the whole 
Church. 

It did these laborers good to bring their 
cause thus before their brethren. It did the 
Church good to hear what was going on in 
mission-work. Some were there who for the 
first time realized what an opportunity there 
was for them. They wanted to do some- 

[130] 



thing for Christ, but had no idea that their 
church had so many doors of usefulness open 
to them. They had read and heard a good 
deal about organizing home-evangelization 
movements, and the responsibility of 
churches for a definite field; but now they 
had some thing more definite before them. 

It was an out and out good meeting. 
Everybody said so. It was held, not on Sun- 
day evening, because the most of their mis- 
sion laborers were employed then, and such 
a meeting, with them left out, could not have 
been held. It was on a Friday evening, after 
the communion. In fact, it was the weekly 
prayer-meeting, changed for the time being 
into a "home prayer-meeting," without the 
name. We hope they will hold another after 
the next communion. 



[131] 



COUNTING CONVERTS 

"When you begin to count, then your 
revival begins to decline." This is regarded 
by many as an axiom; by a few, almost with 
superstition. We confess having but little 
respect for it. Did not the apostles count 
converts? Were there not "about three 
thousand souls" converted on the day of 
Pentecost? (Acts ii. 41) and, afterwards, 
was not the "number of the men about five 
thousand?" (iv. 4.) Had not Paul counted 
the dear converts whom he greets in the last 
chapter of Romans? The fact that the 
apostles were inspired does not seem to us to 
weaken the force of the argument. 

Yet trouble has arisen many times from 
this "numbering of Israel," as there did in 
the days of David. How shall it be avoided? 

1. Do not stop to count. There was once 
a wonderful draught of fishes from the Lake 
of Gennesaret (John xxi. 6). They were 
counted, — just "a hundred, fifty, and three," 
— but it was not till the overburdened net 
had landed all its contents. Till then, the 
fishermen were too busy to count. 

2. Do not count decisively. Elijah once 
counted one, when the Lord counted seven 

U32] 



thousand. Perhaps at other times the esti- 
mate was reversed. 

3. Do not count prematurely. A sinner 
may be anchored on a false hope by finding 
that he is "reckoned in" among the new- 
born before he has thoroughly probed the 
evil of his own heart. 

4. Do not count with exaggeration. Is 
there a "great work" in your place? Seek to 
make it greater in fact, but not in words. 

5. Do not count those who do not count 
themselves. Let the solemn duty of confess- 
ing Christ remain in all its force upon those 
who have begun to hope in him. 

6. Do not count for vain-glory, but only 
for the glory of God, for the encouragement 
of his people, and the admonition of his en- 
emies. 



[133] 



FOREIGN MISSIONS— DO THEY PAY? 

It is well understood that benevolent en- 
terprises are amenable to the law of econ- 
omy. The inestimable value of the soul does 
not interfere with this law. Although the 
salvation of one soul is worth more than all 
the money in the world, it does not follow 
that all the money in the world could be 
wisely spent in efforts to save any one soul; 
for the simple reason that other souls, 
equally valuable, would be neglected. God 
has not presented to the Christian world the 
alternative of saving that one soul or none; 
he has given us a wide harvest field, with a 
wide promise of fruitfulness. He has also 
given us wisdom to choose our points of ef- 
fort. 

This matter of choice applies to the grand 
divisions of home and foreign labor. We are 
indeed commanded to go "into all the 
world ;" but this does not decide how long 
we are to tarry in one place before proceed- 
ing to another. Shall we attempt a literal 
fulfillment of this by hurrying over the 
known world without waiting to take any 
care of the seed sown, without planting 

[134] 



Christian institutions? Or shall we, for the 
present, spend all our strength, our time, our 
money, on our own land, considering this as 
a part of the whole world which must be 
more thoroughly evangelized before we ad- 
vance into heathen territory? Is it wise and 
economical to spend so much (so little one 
might say) on these hundreds of stations 
scattered over the whole world, struggling 
feebly for an existence? 

It is no answer to say that the souls of 
the heathen are as precious as ours : we know 
that; but are they any more precious? and 
would not the amount of labor spent in hea- 
then lands have saved vastly more souls in 
our own land? Would not the zeal of Jud- 
son have saved more in the United States 
than in Burmah? Could not the same be 
said of the laborers at the Sandwich Islands? 

It may also be said that foreign missions 
are necessary to keep up piety at home, and 
it is true; but it would not be true if those 
at home were persuaded that it is unwise to 
maintain foreign missions. There is a ques- 
tion of wisdom, of economy, of success, that 
must be answered, and that we are confident 
can be answered. 

The expediency of foreign missions does 
not rest exclusively on the saving of a cer- 
tain number of souls by the laborers whom 
we send out. It may be granted that the 

[135] 



same laborers would gather in as many, and 
more, in their own land. We recall, at this 
moment, one who has toiled for eleven years 
in China; the whole number of his converts 
not exceeding one a year. We are acquainted 
with that missionary. We know he would 
have labored as faithfully here as in China; 
and we will not dispute one who should say 
that here his converts would have numbered 
hundreds. But what then? The distinctive 
work of missions is this: To plant Chris- 
tianity in as many centers of influence as 
possible; that, in the great outpouring of the 
Holy Spirit for which we look, it may speed- 
ily bring every knee to bow to Jesus. This 
is something wholly different from the sav- 
ing of a certain number of souls during the 
lifetime of the missionary. This is some- 
thing that foreign missions alone can do. 

This may be illustrated by our war; by 
any successful war. Is success measured by 
the number of the enemy slain in battle, or 
the number of .cities taken? How many in- 
dividuals, hostile to the Government, were 
subdued or killed at the taking of New Or- 
leans? How much territory was reclaimed 
at Port Royal? How came the Confederacy 
to be reduced to a hollow "shell?" Why 
was that desperate race to gain possession 
of a little miserable village called Danville? 
Position is half of success in war. So it is 



[136] 



in the conquest of the world for Christ. We 
must have bases of operations, fortified posts, 
camps of instruction. We must flank the 
armies of Satan. We must accumulate am- 
munition, and be constantly skirmishing. 
This is the least that we can do, and this 
least is a sublime work. What, for instance, 
has already been done for the one hundred 
and twenty millions who speak the Arabic 
language? If you ask for the number of 
converts, we can not tell; but we know that 
the whole blessed Bible has been accurately 
translated into that tongue, and thus a 
mighty spiritual force has been set in motion 
which God can make the means of saving 
that whole nation, if it be his will, within the 
lifetime of our readers. A great deal of mis- 
sionary work consists in the establishing of 
outposts, and preparation of forces; and who 
can tell how soon the Spirit of the Lord 
shall lead forth these forces to uninterrupted 
triumphs? The least that the Church can 
do is to place itself in the attitude of waiting 
for the Spirit. This can be done only by 
establishing the means of grace at centers 
of influence the world over. 

This view is adapted to give relief to 
those who mourn over the decay of races 
Christianized. The natives of the Sandwich 
Islands, they say sadly, are becoming ex- 
tinct. What of it? Is not Christianity 

[137] 



planted at that half-way station of Pacific 
commerce? Will they not be Christian 
islands for ever? What, then, is the ques- 
tion of race? The evangelization of the 
world is one thing; the preservation of a par- 
ticular race, quite another. If the present 
races of India should perish, what then? 
Would the world necessarily be a loser, and 
God's purpose to bring the world to Christ 
be frustrated? 

Another discouraging view is, that the 
heathen world is gradually gaining ground 
upon the Church, notwithstanding all the 
efforts of modern missions. In respect to 
numbers we do not doubt it. The population 
of the Chinese Empire is more than four 
hundred millions: suppose the natural in- 
crease to be only one million a year, and the 
number of converts at present makes little 
show in comparison; but this shows that we 
are simply preparing the way of the Lord. 
Every knee shall yet bow to Jesus in the 
Chinese Empire. 

The foreign missionary work, so far as 
it is peculiar, is a work of faith. At the same 
time it is none the less a work of the high- 
est wisdom. It is a wise and necessary prep- 
aration for the future, while it has, in com- 
mon with all Christian labor, the blessed re- 
sults constantly realized of individual souls 
saved, — turned from darkness unto light. 

[138] 



Many a mission church among the heathen 
has more converts in a given year than some 
that could be selected in our own land; but 
if this were not the case, if conversions were 
far less frequent than they are on every mis- 
sion field, the duty and expediency of main- 
taining all our missions, and greatly strength- 
ening and multiplying them, would remain 
the same. 



[139] 



A PROPHECY THAT CAN NOT FAIL 

Christian workers have to go again and 
again to the promises and prophesies for en- 
couragement. But there is one of the most 
precious of these that is seldom quoted. 
Jesus himself distinctly foretells the conver- 
sion of the whole world. As he approached 
the trying hour of the betrayal, his soul 
seems to have passed through a pain- 
ful crisis. "Now is my soul troubled/' he 
exclaimed; "and what shall I say? Father, 
save me from this hour? but for this cause 
came I unto this hour." But soon light 
broke upon him, and he saw the crown be- 
yond the cross. "Now is the judgment of 
this world; now shall the prince of this world 
be cast out." Then, looking through the long 
ages to come he declares, "And I, if I be 
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
unto me." Glorious prophecy and promise! 
Do we not read that Jesus, "for the joy set 
before him, endured the cross?" This was 
a blissful moment of that joy. And all that 
are following him in labor for the world's 
salvation may share in it. The world shall 
be converted. The Lord has said it : he said 



[140] 



it while standing under the shadow of his 
cross. Heaven and earth shall pass away; 
but his words shall not pass away. The time 
is coming when there shall be but one re- 
ligion in the world, and that shall be the re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ. He shall "draw all 
men" unto him. Toil on, then, missionary 
of the cross! He who was lifted up from 
earth is drawing men through you. Toil on, 
assured of success, all you who work to save 
men! Jesus will not fail to keep his word. 
"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and 
be satisfied. " The cross shall win the day. 
By and by, the whole world will be Christian. 



[141] 



THE CHURCH AND REFORMS 

There ought to be no conflict between the 
Church and true reformers. Jesus Christ 
was more than a reformer; yet, in the high- 
est sense of the term, he was and is the 
greatest of reformers. He reforms the heart, 
gives a new birth, changes the character at 
its springs of action. 

His disciples are also reformers. The 
Church is the greatest institution of reform 
in the world. Many doubt this. They have, 
alas! too much reason to; but they would 
doubt less if they could only appreciate bet- 
ter the power of piety. 

There is one argument on this point 
which ought to be convincing to those famil- 
iar with modern history. Whence arose the 
great Reformation, which gave rise to Prot- 
estant Christianity and all its subordinate 
reforms? It arose from the deep religious, 
spiritual experience of Luther and his com- 
peers. No one can read impartially the "Life 
of Luther" without feeling that the Reforma- 
tion was born of fervent piety and of evan- 
gelical faith. The same is true of the refor- 
mation in England. Let those, then, who 

[142] 



think highly of reforms, but care little for the 
spiritual ordinances of the Church, remem- 
ber that they are indebted to evangelical 
Christianity for the success of which they 
boast. 

Still the churches of Christ are not what 
they should be in respect to philanthropic 
and reformatory movements. They are too 
sluggish; too apt to think that no good can 
be done to men till they are converted; too 
jealous of organizations that are or may be 
thoroughly Christian; too anxious to secure 
peace and quiet at the expense of righteous- 
ness; too neglectful of benevolence to the 
poor in temporal things; too much absorbed 
with the idea of the Church as a fold, instead 
of a power of doing good. 

If Christians would honor their Master 
and his Church, they must, as they are com- 
manded, "be ready to every good work." 
You need not wait for your church to go 
unanimously with you. Your orders come 
from a higher source than your church. 
Your Lord says, "Be ready to every good 
work." Do not compromise your faith even 
for doing a seeming good, but do good for 
Christ's sake, and in imitation of his ex- 
ample. 



[143] 



COME TO CHRIST AGAIN 

Does this paper come into the hands of 
a backslider? The word has an awkward, 
unpleasant sound; but the thing itself is a 
great deal more awkward and unpleasant. 
It is sad to have left one's first love, to have 
grown cold toward Jesus, to shun his people, 
to give up secret and social prayer, to neglect 
the Bible, to adopt worldly ways and con- 
duct, to grow un-Christlike and hardhearted. 
It is worse for a Christian to become thus 
than for an unconverted person to be thus. 

And now, dear wandering friend, what 
can be done about it? 

We answer, Come to Christ again. You 
once knew what it was to pour out your 
heart to the Saviour, confessing your sins, 
and seeking pardon. You gave your heart 
to him, and made a solemn covenant to be 
his for ever. A blessed peace arose in your 
soul, which has now left you, and left you 
indeed desolate and unhappy. But you know 
the way to Christ. You know what we mean 
by saying, "Come to him." The path is a 
familiar one. Therefore we say, Come to 
him again. Come in the same way you first 

[144] 



came. The door is the same for the Chris- 
tian and for the Christless. The Apostle 
says, "The life that I now live in the flesh 
I live by the faith of the Son of God." As 
he came by faith to Christ, so he staid by the 
same faith. If you have lost your hope (as 
you ought to, if you have lost communion 
with Christ), you can attain it again in the 
same way you first got it, — by coming to 
Jesus as a sinner. If you are in doubt 
whether you ever were a Christian, be one 
now, and let the past go. But if you are not 
ready to give up your past hope, then we say, 
Come as before. You know the way: you 
have tried it. It ought to be easier than it 
was before. 

"But I have crucified the Son of God 
afresh, and put him to an open shame. It 
would be better for me if I had lived utterly 
without hope to this moment. I am more 
hopeless than the unconverted. I am under 
a special curse." 

Where have you so learned Christ? Is 
it the same Christ who said, "I am the good 
shepherd;" who spoke the parable of the 
prodigal son; who said to erring Peter, "I 
have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not?" 
Do you mean to say that all wanderers are 
warned never to return? Why, then, do we 
read (Rev. ii. 5), "Remember, therefore, 
from whence thou art fallen, and repent and 

[145] 



do the first works ?" Are there no cords of 
sweet recollection to draw a straying sheep 
back to the dear fold? 

If you are an open apostate, striving to 
bring Christ into contempt, and deriding the 
truths of his religion, then, indeed, you may 
despair. If you are acting like Paul before 
his conversion, without Paul's excuse of ig- 
norance, you may be "nigh unto cursing." 
Persons of this class are meant by those who 
"crucify to themselves the Son of God 
afresh," who have "trodden under foot the 
Son of God." But it is doing dreadful vio- 
lence to Scripture, and bringing dishonor on 
the long-suffering Jesus, to confound all 
backsliders with these incorrigible apostates 
who have "done despite unto the Spirit of 
grace." It is safe to say that no such per- 
sons are reading these lines with any desire 
to learn the way anew to Christ. They hate 
Christ. 

We say, then, Come to Christ again. He 
is yearning over you. He has prayed for you 
that your faith fail not. You have sinned 
greatly in forsaking him; but his mercies are 
unbounded. Only return, and you will have 
a warm, forgiving welcome. Don't think 
that his mercies are for the new-comers only. 
He remembers his old friends. He has ten- 
der words for his Davids and Peters. Their 
sins he will remember no more if they will 

[146] 



only come back. "Remember, therefore, from 
whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do 
the first works;" and let these works grow 
into better works than they ever were be- 
fore. Seek out the people of God again, and 
cast in your lot with them, and get their help. 
Go to your closet again, and seek the com- 
fort and strength of prayer. Take up again 
Christian work, and follow Christ in every 
duty. Open the door of your heart more 
fully than ever before. Let him be your 
strength and righteousness. Believe in him 
as your Saviour again. Thank him with all 
your heart for forgiving you again, and live 
rejoicing in his grace. Thus come, and thus 
stay. 



[147] 



THE SINS OF CHRISTIANS 

The first thing to be said about the sins 
of Christians is, that they are just like other 
people's sins. A lie is a lie, whether uttered 
by lips that an hour before were opened in 
sincere prayer, or by lips that never mention 
the name of God except in profane swearing. 
Cheating is simply and always stealing, 
whether the gains are afterwards conse- 
crated to the Lord's work or to the Devil's. 
Murder is murder, even though David com- 
mits it. Lust is no less lustful because it sets 
up its foul sway in a heart that has begun 
to be made clean by the Holy Spirit. There 
is no such thing as sanctified sin. Our sins 
are not washed clean, but washed away. If 
any Christian is so interpreting the doctrines 
of free grace and imputed righteousness, and 
an indwelling Christ, as to find any comfort 
in the thought that his sins are wondrously 
modified, and made less odious in the sight of 
God than the sins of the ungodly, let him 
beware ; for he is far gone already in a deadly 
heresy. 

The next thing to be said about Chris- 
tians' sins is (if the reader will pardon the 

[148] 



contradiction), that they are not like others' 
sins. They are more heinous, covered with 
blacker guilt. For a Christian to lie is a 
greater offense against the truth than for 
any one else, because he does it in the very 
presence of his Saviour, in the clear light of 
truth itself. Think of the apostle John as 
uttering lies from the bosom of Jesus! For 
a Christian to be lustful is to defile the very 
temple of the Holy Ghost. All "presump- 
tuous sins" of Christians may be called acts 
of desecration, polluting the holy places 
which God has honored by his sanctifying 
presence. 

We are not speaking of the conduct of 
mere professors of religion. We are think- 
ing of the crimes, small and great, which 
real Christians at times fall into. We are 
thinking of particular instances which we 
know, but need not mention. 

It is often said that Christians should be 
careful of their conduct, because their faults 
bring dishonor upon the cause they profess. 
This is true; but the half is not told. They 
should be careful because these faults and 
crimes are so grievously at war with the 
gracious work of the Holy Ghost in their 
hearts, with the higher life begun, with the 
Christ that is in them. Paul, in rebuking 
the Corinthians for their sensuality, did not, 
we believe, say a word about their dishonor- 

[149] 



ing Christianity. He went to the root of the 
matter. "Know ye not that your bodies are 
the members of Christ? Shall I, then, take 
the members of Christ, and make them the 
members of a harlot? What! know ye not 
that your body is the temple of the Holy 
Ghost?" — i Cor. vi. 15, 19. 

Christian, remember, that, if you com- 
mit the same sins as the ungodly around 
you, you can not do it with the same guilt. 



[150] 



BUSINESS AND PIETY 

"Can a man be a first-rate business man, 
and yet an eminent Christian?" If we may 
judge by the earnestness with which this 
question is sometimes discussed, it has two 
sides to it. On the one side, it is urged that 
success in business requires great concen- 
tration of mind, and that eminent piety re- 
quires the same: consequently the two are 
incompatible. A man can not be wholly de- 
voted to money-making, and at the same 
time wholly devoted to the cultivation of 
piety. It is also urged that business-customs 
are inconsistent with the Golden Rule, or, at 
least, can not be brought up to that high 
standard, and that therefore it is impossible 
for a great business-man to keep his con- 
science as sensitive as an eminent Christian's 
ought to be. 

If these arguments are sound, then it is 
the bounden duty of every man to be not 
a great business-man. But this can not for 
a moment be admitted. Facts are against it. 
Take the case of Daniel Safford. He was a 
poor boy, and earned all his property by hard 
labor and thorough business; yet through 

[151] 



the whole course of his business life he was 
a spiritually-minded man, as faithful and 
successful in the prayer-meeting as in his 
shop. 

Again: it is contrary to the Bible to say 
that deep piety prevents one from attaining 
great success in business. "Honor the Lord 
with thy substance, and with the first-fruits 
of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be 
filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst 
out with new wine." "There is that scatter- 
eth, and yet increaseth." "There is no man 
that hath left house, or brethren or sisters, 
or father or mother, or wife or children, or 
lands, for my sake and the Gospel's, but he 
shall receive a hundred-fold now in this time, 
houses, and brethren and sisters, and moth- 
ers and children, and lands, with persecu- 
tions." This last text seems to mean, that he 
who holds nothing as his own, but all things 
as the Lord's, shall have more and more 
given him to use for the Lord's glory. Put 
beside this the parables of the "talents" and 
of the "pounds." It can not be that the right 
and pious use of the Lord's property makes 
it dwindle in the hands of his servants, or 
prevents its increase. 

"But can a godly man get rich as fast 
as one who is more worldly?" This is a very 
different question from the first, and may be 
answered in God's own words: "He that 



[152] 



maketh haste to be rich shall not be inno- 
cent." A thief and a knave may get rich 
suddenly; but neither can be called a first- 
class man of business. 

"But does not our Saviour say that a rich 
man can hardly enter into the kingdom of 
heaven?" Yes: but the connection shows 
that he meant by rich men a particular class 
of persons; viz., those who held great wealth 
as their own for selfish purposes, and not 
those who held, first five talents, and then 
ten, and then eleven, as stewards of God, on 
the principle, that "unto every one that hath 
shall be given, and he shall have abundance." 
The young man that had "great possessions" 
could not enter the kingdom of heaven, be- 
cause he would not acknowledge Christ's su- 
preme authority over his property. He held 
it as his own. No Christian has a right to 
be rich in his own name: all belongs to 
God, — he and all his. 

"Granting all this, is it safe to teach our 
ambitious young men that they can be emi- 
nent both as business-men and as Christians ? 
Will not ninety-nine out of a hundred abuse 
the teaching? Is it not better to inculcate 
less business zeal, and more Christian zeal?" 

The truth is better than any thing else; 
and the truth seems to be this, — that every 
one should use his business-talent as a gift 
of God, and use it fully and conscientiously: 

[153] 



and if the Lord sends great wealth in conse- 
quence, use that conscientiously for his 
glory; if he does not send it, be content with- 
out it. "They that will be rich fall into temp- 
tation and a snare, and into many foolish and 
hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruc- 
tion and perdition. For the love of money is 
the root of all evil." 

How, then, can business be pursued suc- 
cessfully without injuring piety? 

By consecrating the fruits of it wholly to 
the Lord, and giving a sufficient proportion 
in benevolence to make the possessor feel 
that all is the Lord's. 

By conducting business in all respects 
according to the Golden Rule. No amount 
of charities can save the piety of one who 
cheats his customers in trade. 

By guarding sacredly the time for secret 
devotions and social religious meetings. 

By seeking and improving opportunities 
for spiritual labors. 

He who does these things, if God has 
given him great business ability, may expect 
wealth without a curse attending it. He may 
expect that his five talents will gain five 
more, and that the one talent of the "wicked 
and slothful servant" will be added thereto. 



[154] 



EXTRAVAGANCE IN DRESS AND 
ORNAMENTS 

Is it a Christian's duty to dress as plainly 
as possible ? If so, who shall tell how plainly 
it is possible to dress? Is it wrong to adorn 
the person? If so, is it not wrong for God 
to clothe the world with beauty? 

On the other hand, is there not such a 
thing as extravagance in dress and other per- 
sonal expenses? and are not many Christians 
falling into this? 

The question of extravagance is confess- 
edly a difficult one; but we need not be 
wholly in the fog about it. There are some 
principles which all agree in applying to it; 
and there are others not so generally ad- 
mitted. Among the former principles are 
these: Your personal expenses should not 
exceed your means; so that ornaments, being 
translated, mean debts. And debts, in such 
cases, are apt to mean robbery. Your ex- 
penses for dress should bear a due propor- 
tion to expenses for mental and moral im- 
provement; so that rings on the fingers shall 
not represent books unread and opportuni- 
ties wasted. Your expenses for dress should 
not be made purposely to foster a love of 
show and a spirit of rivalry. All admit, fur- 
ther, that these expenses should be limited 
by good taste. If a certain style of dress, 

[155] 



other things being equal, is in better taste 
than a more expensive one, it is extrava- 
gance to choose the latter. All, whether 
Christians or not, admit these principles; and 
respectable people generally act upon them 
with more or less success. There is, how- 
ever, great room for improvement on these 
grounds alone. 

But are there not Christian motives that 
have a much wider reach than these? We 
are sometimes told that all such matters are 
indefinite, and must be left to individual con- 
sciences. Very true; but are there no gen- 
eral principles to guide individual con- 
sciences? The case will be indefinite enough 
after general principles have thrown their 
clearest light. It seems to us, that, after 
expense for dress and personal ornaments 
has been subjected to the four tests given 
above, the Christian spirit requires it to be 
regulated by the following additional prin- 
ciples : — 

i. The pressing wants of the world 
should restrict personal expenditures. Thou- 
sands upon thousands of our fellow-men in 
Christian lands suffer woes which money 
would do something to alleviate. The poor, 
the degraded, the neglected, cry for relief. 
Millions in heathen lands cry, by their ig- 
norance and misery, if not by their desires, 
for the Gospel. Their cry is uttered in the 

[156] 



voice of One who said, "Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
ture." 

Now, what has this fact — this appalling 
series of facts — to do with extravagance in 
dress? It is simply common sense to say, 
that, living in such a desperately needy 
world, we ought to devote less of our money 
to personal adornment than if the millen- 
nium were already here, — how much less, no 
one can tell for another; but the wants of the 
world must help each one in his own con- 
science to decide the question. 

We are met here by the objection that the 
money which we spend for jewelry and cost- 
ly dress is simply transferred to another who 
lives by our expense, and is himself in turn 
enabled to be benevolent. The answer is 
easy. We admit that money spent is not 
necessarily thrown away; but it has gone 
beyond our power of directing its use. You 
hold a hundred dollars in your hand. You 
want a diamond ring. You also want to pay 
the passage-money of a missionary to Syria. 
After debating the matter with yourself, you 
conclude to go to a jeweler's and buy the 
ring, and let him give that hundred dollars 
to the missionary while you wear the ring. 
A very nice arrangement; but will he do it? 
Not if he strictly follows your example. He 
will pass it over to another, and he to a third; 

[157] 



and the never-ending circuits of trade will 
find no outlet for it into the Lord's treasury. 

Money spent is not always lost to the 
Lord; but it is because it now and then falls 
into the hands of those who live for others 
instead of themselves, and are willing to 
mingle giving with buying and selling. A 
Christian lady may do a service to Christ by 
buying a silk dress of a needy tradesman. 
She may do another service to Christ by sell- 
ing it again, and giving the proceeds to a 
poor neighbor. But whether she buys or 
sells, or gives or keeps, the fact of a needy 
world and personal responsibility for the 
benevolent use of her money will be one 
guiding principle of her conduct. She will 
not say, "I will buy what I fancy, and let 
others look out for charities and missions. " 
That is not being the Lord's steward, but the 
Lord's prodigal. If money spent on that 
principle comes to a good end, it is because 
of an overruling Providence who makes the 
wrath and folly of man to praise him. 

2. Christians are bound by the law of 
Christ to be moderate in the use of personal 
ornaments. Paul writes (i Tim. ii. 9, 10), 
"I will, therefore, . . . that women adorn 
themselves in modest apparel, with shame- 
facedness and sobriety; not with broidered 
hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array, but 
(which becometh women professing godli- 

[158] 



ness) with good works." Peter writes (i 
Pet. iii. 3), "Whose adorning let it not be 
that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, 
and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of 
apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the 
heart in that which is not corruptible, even 
the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, 
which is in the sight of God of great price/' 

These are the two passages which require 
to be "explained away" before some con- 
sciences become quite at ease. They cer- 
tainly read awkwardly in a modern fashion- 
able assembly. What do they mean? Plainly 
this: that only moderate attention should be 
given to personal adorning. Fops, male or 
female, are transgressors of the Christian 
law of dress. Particular articles of dress 
vary in their significance with different times 
and nations; but any one can tell by a little 
self-examination whether he or she is ex- 
tremely devoted to dress. "Modest apparel" 
does not mean the same things in different 
ages; but it is the same thing. 

We are aware that now we have touched 
on the dangerous theme of fashion, and that 
many of our lady readers will say, "Do you 
want us to be singular in dress ? Would you 
make us all Quakers? Is there any more 
merit in being behind the fashion than in 
being up with it? Can't a Christian lady 
look pretty?" To all these we answer No, 

[159] 



except the last; to which we say Yes. Hav- 
ing answered these, we say again, that the 
law of Christ requires you to be moderate in 
personal adorning; and this, with a Chris- 
tian, will be the end of controversy as to the 
general principle. Judge, in the spirit of 
Christ, how to apply the principle in its par- 
ticulars. One thing is certain: if you make 
it your aim to equal the worldly in dress, you 
are going straight against the letter and 
spirit of the commands now cited. Not that 
there is one rule for the church, and another 
for the world; but when the world refuses 
the law of Christ, and takes instead the dic- 
tates of pride and gayety, Christians must 
refuse to follow. It is a fact, it seems to us, 
that, as a general rule, Christians dress more 
plainly than people of the same means who 
are not. If this is not so, it is either because 
the worldly obey the law of Christ as to 
"modest apparel/' or Christians do not. 

We will only add, that it is not necessary 
for a person to be "singular" in order to be 
moderate and modest; nor is it necessary or 
right to be careless and slovenly. 



[160] 



FREEDOM 

We are writing these lines on Decoration 
Day, to be read, perhaps, on Independence 
Day. Both these days are fragrant with 
freedom. The fourth of July ought to teach 
us something about freedom in religion. 
What is meant by freedom of thought and 
belief in matters of religion ? What is a free, 
liberal Christianity? 

We celebrate the formation of a free gov- 
ernment. But is not this a contradiction in 
terms? Is one free who is governed? Yes; 
because freedom does not mean exemption 
from every thing, but exemption from that 
which hurts and hinders. Men without gov- 
ernment are like fish without water, — free, 
but free only to perish. Our fathers made 
themselves free from British rule because it 
was oppressive and injurious. They passed 
from a false government to a true. 

Apply this to Christianity. Who is a free 
Christian? In the first place, he is a Chris- 
tian. He is, according to the best of his 
knowledge, obedient to the law and spirit of 
Christ. He believes the truth, and is gov- 
erned by it. Then he is free and liberal, if 

[161] 



he is exempt from the great hindrances to 
the growth and perfection of Christian char- 
acter, — exempt from ignorance, vice, preju- 
dice, and uncharitableness. He is free from 
chains and fetters, — not free from food, 
clothing, shelter, and healthful exercise. 
Truth is the food of the soul: obedience is 
its healthful exercise. The restraints of truth 
and duty no more shackle the soul than do 
the strong ligaments that hold and govern 
the joints and limbs shackle the body. 

Freedom, then, does not mean freedom 
from divine authority; nor is it freedom from 
the power of love. The greatest power that 
has ever entered the world is the love of God 
in Christ. To surrender the whole soul to 
this, in every thought and feeling and power 
of action, is not a surrender of true liberty. 
The earth, moving in its orbit, is free so long 
as it is unobstructed in that path which the 
law of attraction marks out for it. Such is 
the freedom of the Christian under the at- 
tracting power of the cross. A true citizen 
is free in his loyalty, not from it. 

We believe in liberal Christianity just as 
we believe in free governments. Christian- 
ity, to be liberal, must first be real. Jesus 
said, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye 
my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the 
truth, and the truth shall make you free." 
Some appear to think, that, the less they care 

[162] 



about the truths of Christianity, the more 
liberal they are. But Jesus says, "Seek your 
freedom in the truth." Believe, obey, and 
love the truth; then look out upon the world, 
and with true liberality you will recognize 
and love that truth wherever you find it, 
buried up in however much error. You need 
not be bigoted because your views are clear. 
"The truth shall make you free" from big- 
otry, if you "know the truth" in the spirit 
of Christ. You need not be heterodox in 
order to be liberal. You need not drown 
yourself in error in order to love and rescue 
the drowning. By all means, have liberal 
Christianity; but let it be genuine. Let the 
liberality be that of an overflowing fountain, 
which must be pure before it can be refresh- 
ing. Let it overflow in a love that is accord- 
ing to truth and according to Christ. 



[163] 



GIVE THANKS 

November has come to be the Thanks- 
giving month of Americans ; but whether it 
will be really a time of giving of thanks with 
you, reader, depends partly upon your incli- 
nation to review and think of God's mercies 
to you. 

Let us take up the matter. Where shall 
we begin? What are you now enjoying? 
You are at least enjoying the possession of 
reason, or you could not follow these lines, 
and think of them; could not communicate 
with your friends and fellow-men; could not 
think of God; could not think at all; could 
not be a social or sensible being. Why not 
give thanks for your reason? And this is 
very much like giving thanks for your being, 
your very soul; for what is man without his 
reason ? Yet some are deprived of it tempo- 
rarily; and therefore we may set it down as 
a gift not inseparable from our existence. It 
may come and go. If it is to you a perma- 
nent possession, a steady light, give thanks 
for it. You can not put it to a better use 
than thanksgiving. Give thanks for the 
wonderful faculties God has given your soul. 

[164] 



You are a wonderful being. You can per- 
ceive, compare, know, remember, reflect, 
plan, judge, decide, act. You can feel, can 
love, can hate. You can know right and 
wrong; can do duty, and worship God. This 
is a marvelous collection of powers. True, 
they may be abused; but in themselves, in 
their proper use, and in their relations to 
the boundless fields of knowledge and ex- 
perience, what a glorious endowment they 
are ! Give thanks for them. 

Will it be saying the same thing over 
again if w T e ask you to give thanks for the 
world without you as well as the powers 
within? What would your soul-capacities 
be but instruments of torture if you were 
not surrounded by objects to be known, 
thought upon, and loved? In heathen my- 
thology, one of the worst torments of the 
infernal regions was that of Tantalus, who 
was the victim of a consuming thirst, while 
the sweet water was always just beyond his 
lips. God, who gave you your intellect, sen- 
sibilities, affections, and will, has set you in 
a w r orld adapted to call forth their exercise. 
The world was made for your mind. The air 
vibrates for your ear. The light radiates 
for your eye. The beautiful landscape is 
spread out for your taste. Hearts beat in 
response to your heart. 

But there is one object that fills all things 

[165] 



with a glorious presence, whom to know is 
life eternal. Give thanks for the revelation 
of God, for the knowledge of his love, for 
the cross of Jesus Christ, and for Christ 
within you if you are his disciple. There is 
this peculiarity about these blessings, — they 
will compensate for the loss of every other. 
To have Christ is to have a title to perfect 
bliss. Lose what you may, it is nothing in 
comparison with a Christian experience. Be 
thankful for Christ. Even if you are not a 
Christian, be thankful that you are not in 
hell, as we all deserve to be. 

Now, let us come down from these heights, 
and look for lower mercies. And it must be 
acknowledged, that, while we are in the flesh, 
we shall be sensible of earthly blessings; 
and we should be. How could we enjoy our 
Father's care if we could not thank him for 
daily bread? Give thanks for your home, 
your health, your friends, food, clothing, 
shelter, and every bodily comfort. Without 
doubt, you have trials in connection with 
most of these things; but, unless you can de- 
liberately say (and prove it too) that you 
have nothing to be thankful for, pour out 
your thanks for the bright side of your life. 
We assure you it will make the dark side 
look brighter. There is just that sweet 
power in thankfulness to God. 

Having exhausted your list of obvious 

[166] 



blessings we must remind you that there are 
"blessings in disguise;" and we call upon you 
to give thanks, even though at first it be 
somewhat blindly, for these. A certain suf- 
ferer once said, "Before I was afflicted, I 
went astray; but now have I sought Thy 
word." Try hard to be thankful for your 
afflictions. If you can not yet see how they 
have been blessed to you, perhaps the turn- 
ing-point will be when you can thank God 
for his chastisement. 

This is the last point to be reached on 
the scale of gratitude. When you can praise 
God for afflictions, you are thank-full. In 
such a frame of mind, you can look out upon 
your country and the world, and find occa- 
sions enough for thanksgiving. What is 
needed is a grateful spirit. Without this, 
you may pile up outward mercies in your 
thoughts, and they will be but monuments 
to your coldheartedness. Whence comes this 
grateful spirit? From a true Christian faith. 
Unless we can thank God for the gift of his 
Son, there is very little thanksgiving that we 
can offer. A faith that realizes man's true 
desert and God's great love will fill the soul 
with thankfulness. 

Dear reader, we wish you such thanks- 
giving-. 



[167] 



COME! 

There is no sweeter word than this in the 
New Testament, because there is none more 
full of the love of Jesus. 

It implies his nearness to us. It is not a 
message sent to us from a distance, but is a 
word of conversation uttered within easy 
hearing; but it includes a world of self-sacri- 
fice, which should bring Jesus from the 
glory of heaven down to this companionship 
of social intercourse with us. Before he 
could say, ''Come unto me," he had to come 
to us. 

It is a very friendly and winning word. 
It is not the same as "Go." "Go and wash 
in Jordan seven times" was a most useful 
direction. It contained all that was neces- 
sary for the cure of Naaman. But Jesus 
does not send us away for our healing. Sal- 
vation would be a different thing for us if 
Jesus always said "Go," no matter whither, 
and never said "Come." This word pledges 
us his help, his company, his friendship. 

It implies, too, that what we need is found 
in Christ. Well might Peter say, "Lord, to 
whom shall we go? Thou hast the words 

[168] 



of eternal life." There is no salvation ex- 
cept with Christ and in him. In him there is 
rest. Hear his words: "Come unto me, all 
ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will 
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and 
learn of me : for I am meek, and lowly in 
heart ; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 
For my voke is easv, and my burden is 

light." 

In him the thirst of the soul, its ardent de- 
sire for happiness, is satisfied. "If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." 
"Let him that is athirst come; and whoso- 
ever will, let him take the water of life 
freely." 

Dear reader, come ! We will not say, "Go 
to Christ;" but standing, as we hope we do, 
on the Lord's side, we say, "Come to him." 
Of course, you are not to do this in any bod- 
ily sense. Jesus was not satisfied with this 
when he was on earth. He is not now. 
Come in your heart, your thoughts, your 
service, your prayer, your deepest trust; 
come, and he will in no wise cast you out. 



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